


Higurashi Month

by catsvrsdogscatswin



Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry
Genre: Annual Monthly Prompt Fill, F/F, F/M, M/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 90
Words: 91,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24112564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsvrsdogscatswin/pseuds/catsvrsdogscatswin
Summary: It has been brought to my attention that no one ever officially named June as the unofficial "Higurashi Month" in which the fandom revs up and posts all sorts of pictures, stories, and general content per a daily prompt or some such thing. This is borderline blasphemous, and I have done my best to remedy it by posting a prompt list and a series of daily short snippets MYSELF this June, and every June hereafter.This fic is a collection of all the monthly prompts thus far. The prompt fills are all separate and do not interconnect unless expressly stated to do so.
Relationships: Multiple Pairings - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Day 1: Closed Doors (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the prompt list for this June:
> 
> 1.Closed Doors  
> 2.Good Vibes  
> 3.Sounds  
> 4.Mirror Mirror  
> 5.Smoke, Fog, and Haze  
> 6.Missed Connections  
> 7.Outside the Window  
> 8.Food  
> 9.The Letter Poem  
> 10.Addict  
> 11.Eye Contact  
> 12.Fire-Starters  
> 13.Dream-catcher  
> 14.Coffee & Tea  
> 15.Dread  
> 16.The Unrequited Love Poem  
> 17.Dragon  
> 18.The Vessel  
> 19.Greeting  
> 20.Animals  
> 21.Great Minds  
> 22.Shopping  
> 23.Fear  
> 24.Dictionary Definition  
> 25.Friendship  
> 26.Shadow  
> 27.Cleaning  
> 28.Eavesdropper  
> 29.Sugar  
> 30.Dancing

Mion and Shion looked exactly alike. They had the same hair and the same eyes and the same skin and even though they had different wardrobes, they still used the same clothes.

Mion and Shion were exactly alike.

Except they weren't.

Mion was the eldest, the heir to the Sonozaki Family that everyone treated nicely and with respect. Mion got all the treats. Mion was the one everyone coddled when she fell down. Mion got invited to all the secret family meetings and got to know everything that was going on.

Shion was the youngest, the spare to the heir that no one had ever wanted. Shion got shooed away from treats. Shion was the one everyone ignored when she tripped. Shion got pushed away whenever something important was going on with their family.

But all Mion or Shion had to do was take out their ribbon, and switch clothes, and suddenly everything changed. Everyone treated Shion nicely while Mion was shunned and ignored.

Mion did her best to be a good big sister, and not hog the identity of "Mion" all to herself, all the time. It was easy when Grandma wanted her to do a hard lesson or dress up in a kimono and look solemn, but it was a lot harder other times, like when Mion got invited to a fair and Shion conveniently was forced to do homework, or when Grandma made special treats for Mion but not enough to share with Shion.

And then one day…

_"No fair! No fair! You get all the good stuff, Mion…I've never had sea bream sashimi! I want to try it!"_

_"Okay. I'll trade places with you today!"_

…Mion and Shion were stupid. So stupid. Why hadn't they thought of the reason Mion would get to go to a banquet and enjoy so fine a treat? Why hadn't they thought of how the family had been talking about "bestowing the mark of the demon" lately?

Mion's world cracked when a crying Shion burst into their room that night. Her back hurt, she said, it hurt a lot and she hadn't wanted to sashimi after all. She kept crying that over and over, like a prayer or a plea for forgiveness. She didn't want the sashimi and wished more than anything that she had stayed Shion for the day, that Mion had been the one whose shirt was pulled up and fire spilled all over her back.

Mion didn't understand what Shion had meant until she calmed her sniffling sister down and lifted up Shion's shirt. A glaring, inflamed _oni_ tattoo had leered back at Mion from the skin of her twin's lower back, and they were both scared, because that meant that they might be caught when they switched again. They hadn't thought about anything else, because there wasn't anything else to think about yet. Mion calmed her little sister down some more and they snuggled together to sleep.

It was only when Shion got up the courage to ask their mother the next day what the tattoo meant that Mion's world finally actually shattered apart.

The heir to the Sonozaki Family, leaders in the village known as "the pit of demons", received the oni, the demon, as a character in their names, as a fire in their souls, and as a mark on their body. It was a great honor, mother told a sobbing Shion, and "Mion" should be proud to receive it.

Mion. _Mion._ MionMionMionMionMionMionMion.

**MION.**

Except Mion didn't own the demon. Shion did. Everything was wrong and upside-down, and nothing either Mion or Shion could do would fix it.

Tattoos were permanent. Tattoos couldn't be wiped away, and one like this couldn't be copied.

They could pretend. "Mion" could become Shion to trick their friends, and she and Mion could laugh. But they couldn't fool their family. Their family knew the demon. Shion would always be "Mion" to them, and Mion was forced to be "Shion".

She hated it. Being Shion was fun in small doses, but only because Mion knew by her sacrifice her little sister was enjoying the treats she would have in Mion's place.

Being "Shion" all the time, when the real Shion was forced to act in her place with a scared white face and guilty eyes, terrible. Her mother and father didn't comfort her any more when she had a nightmare and came knocking at their door. Grandma didn't let her sit in on the meetings anymore, and she didn't get to dress up in that white kimono, which wasn't so very bad after all, not really.

Doors were opened to Shion on that day. And doors were closed to Mion.


	2. Day 2: Good Vibes (2018)

Everyone in Hinamizawa loved Rika Furude. Like the Grinch, no one quite knew the reason; she was just that way.

Perhaps it was because she was so adorable, like a little green-gowned mountain sprite with a smooth curtain of midnight-blue hair and violet eyes as deep and seeming-dark as a porcelain doll, with her cute little chirps and "mew"s and "nipah"s that she passed out like sweet candy.

Perhaps it was because she was the Furude Priestess, vessel of Oyashiro-sama and his earthly representation. She kept the god smiling upon everyone, kept

`–ubject receptive to tsūsensan, reports feelings of slight pain and cranial pressure in the case of other general anest–`

the curse from striking down upon good and pious citizens, their direct link to soothing Oyashiro-sama's stirred wrath on Watanagashi and whenever a foolish outsider might create trouble.

Whatever the reason, she was always treated kindly, and smiled upon, and given treats and candy when passed in the street. She never used "-san" or "-sama" or even "-chan" and "-kun", but the most she ever got for this impudence was a fond chuckle and a ruffle of her hair from up on high. Other children looked on this special treatment jealously; Rika Furude seemed to lead a charmed life. But she shared her candy and her treats, and if they were scolded when they tried to emulate her lack of honorifics, they were usually chastised only the once before their own lessons took.

So the children loved Rika Furude too.

`–o evidence yet of neutralizing pathogen responsible for–`

Rika Furude had to practice for dances and learn about priestly things from her father, but she managed even these things with grace and with dignity, as though she were a shrunken little priestess already, dancing the Watanagashi for an audience her parents couldn't see. They complimented and hugged her and patted her head, and Rika smiled her little smile, and the old women who sewed the costume she used to stand in for her father sometimes on Watangashi if he was feeling tired cooed and patted her head some more.

Rika Furude's influence on the population of Hinamizawa was almost magical. There were some who wondered if her position as Oyashiro-sama's priestess meant she was blessed in such

`–ests confirm existence of the Queen phenome within Furude line. Current Queen Carrier, Furude Rika.`

`Signed,`  
`Doctor Irie Kyōsuke.`


	3. Day 3: Sounds (2018)

Pit. Pit. Pitter-patter.

Crunch crunch crunch.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Swish. Swish.

Pouf pouf _grunch_.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Scrape scrape _screeee_ …

Clang clang clong.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Bring bring! Fwsssssssh-click-click-click-click…

Drip drip drip.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Tap tap. Tap.

Bom. Bom. Bom.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Clunk clank scree.

Click click click.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Vrrrrm, vrrrrm…

BANG!

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Cree- _swish!_ Tong, tong, tong~

Click-BONK!

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

Chirp chirp chirp.

Tweet tweet tweet.

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_

_Kanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakanakana…_


	4. Day 4: Mirror Mirror (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is adapted from the _Snow White_ in _Fariy Tales Every Child Should Know_ by Hamilton Wright Mable. Its also the longest one yet!

One day in the middle of winter, when the the blossoms of the pear tree fell from the sky like feathers, a queen sat at a window netting. Her netting-needle was of lapis lazuli, and as she worked, and the petals fluttered, she pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell onto the fallen flowers. The red spots looked so beautiful in the white petals that the queen thought to herself: "Oh, if I only had a little child, I should like it to be as fair as the pear blossoms in spring, as rosy as the red blood, and with hair as blue as lapis."

Very soon after this the queen had a little daughter who was very fair, had rosy cheeks, and hair as blue as lapis; and they gave her the name of Rika Furude. But at the birth of the little child the queen died.

When Rika Furude was a year old, the king took another wife, named Takano Miyo. She was very handsome, but so proud and vain that she could not endure that anyone should surpass her in beauty. She possessed a wonderful mirror, and when she stood before it to look at herself she would say:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall,  
Am I most beautiful of all?"

Then the mirror would reply:

"Young queen, thou are so wondrous fair,  
None can with thee at all compare."

Then she would go away quite contented, for she knew the magic mirror could speak only the truth.

Years went by, and as Rika Furude grew up, she became day after day more cute, till she reached the age of seven years, and then people began to talk about her, and say that she would be more lovely even than the queen herself. So the proud woman went to her magic looking-glass, and asked:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall,  
Am I most beautiful of all?"

But the mirror answered:

"Queen, thou are lovely still to see,  
But Rika Furude will be  
A thousand times more adorable than thee."

Then the queen was terrified, and turned green and yellow with jealousy. If she had caught sight of Rika Furude at that moment, she would have been ready to tear her heart out of her body, she hated the child so fiercely.

And this jealousy and envy grew every day stronger and stronger in her heart, like a disease, till she had no rest day or night.

At last she sent for a hunter, Irie Kyosuke, who lived near a forest, and said to him, "Hunter, I want to get rid of that child. Take her out into the wood, and if you bring me some proofs that she is dead, I will reward you handsomely. Never let her appear before my eyes again."

So the hunter enticed the child into the wood; but when he took out his hunting-knife to thrust into Rika Furude's innocent heart, she fell on her knees and wept, and said, "Mew, leave me my life; I will run away into the wild wood, and never, never come home any more, and I will even put on a maid dress, if only you will spare me."

She looked so innocent and beautiful as she knelt, that the hunter's heart was moved with compassion: "Run away, then, thou poor child," he cried; "I cannot harm thee."

Rika Furude thanked him sweetly, and was out of sight in a few moments. "She will be devoured by wild beasts," he said to himself. But the thought that he had not killed her was as if a stone-weight had been lifted from his heart.

To satisfy the queen, Irie took part of the insides of a young fawn, which the wicked woman thought was poor little Rika Furude, and was overjoyed to think she was dead. And the hunter then took his services far into the north, lest the queen find his deception as what it was, creating a haven of maids in his new dwelling with the money of his reward, to honor Rika Furude's promise, and also because he loved maids.

But the poor little motherless child, when she found herself alone in the wood, and saw nothing but trees and leaves, was dreadfully frightened, and knew not what to do. At last she began to run over the sharp stones and through the thorns, and though the wild beasts sprang out before her, they did her no harm. She ran on as long as she could till her little feet became quite sore; and towards evening she saw, to her great joy, a pretty little house. So she went up to it, and found the door open and no one at home.

It was a tiny little house, but everything in it was so clean and neat and elegant that it is beyond description. In the middle of the room stood a small table, covered with a snow-white table-cloth, ready for supper. On it were arranged seven little plates, seven little spoons, seven little knives and forks, and seven mugs. By the wall stood seven little beds, near each other, covered with white quilts.

Poor Rika Furude, who was hungry and thirsty, ate a few vegetables and a little bread from each plate, and drank a little drop of wine from each cup, for she did not like to take all she wanted from one alone. After this, feeling very tired, she thought she would lie down and rest on one of the beds, but she found it difficult to choose one to suit her. One was too long, another too short; so she tried them all till she came to the seventh, and that was so comfortable that she laid herself down, and was soon fast asleep.

When it was quite dark the masters of the house came home. They were seven little dwarfs, who dug and searched in the mountains for minerals. As soon as they entered the room they saw that someone had been there, for everything did not stand in the order in which they had left it.

Then said the first, Mion, "Who has been sitting in my chair?"

The second, Keiichi, exclaimed, "Who has been eating from my plate?"

The third, Satoko cried, "Someone has taken part of my bread."

"Who has been eating my vegetables?" said the fourth, Satoshi.

Then said the fifth, Rena, "Someone has used my fork."

The sixth, Shion, cried "And who has been cutting with my knife?"

"And someone has been drinking out of my cup," said the seventh, Hanyuu.

Then the eldest looked at her bed, and, seeing that it looked tumbled, cried out that someone had been upon it. The others came running forward, and found all their beds in the same condition. But when the seventh approached her bed, and saw Rika Furude lying there fast asleep, she called the others, who came quickly, and holding their lights over their heads, cried out in wonder as they beheld the sleeping child.

"Oh, what a cute little child!" they said to each other, and were so delighted that they would not awaken her, but left her to sleep as long as she liked in the little bed, while its owner Hanyuu slept with one of her companions, and so the night passed away.

In the morning, when Rika Furude awoke, and saw all the dwarfs, she was terribly frightened. But they spoke kindly to her, till she lost all fear, and they asked her name. "I am called Rika Furude," she replied with a beaming smile. "Nipah~"

"Adorable! I wish to take her home!" squealed Rena, the fifth.

"But she is already in our home," Mion pointed out. "And speaking of, how came you to our house?"

Then Rika related to them all that had happened; how her stepmother had sent her into the wood with the hunter, who had spared her life, and that, after wandering about for a whole day, she had found their house.

The dwarfs talked a little while together, and then Mion said, "Do you think you could be our eighth player at card games, and finding games, and running games, and tag and seek and puzzle games, and keep up with us in our competitions? If you can, then you shall stay here with us, and nobody shall hurt you."

"Oh yes, I will try," said Rika Furude. So they let her stay, and she was a clever little thing, and almost never lost a game. They played all evening in the cottage and in the forest, and Rika managed very well. And while the dwarves were gone to the mountains to find gold, she got everyone's supper ready, and they were very happy together.

But every morning when they left her, the kind little dwarfs warned Rika Furude to be careful. While the child was alone they knew she was in danger, and told her not to show herself, for her stepmother would soon find out where she was, and said, "Whatever you do, let nobody into the house while we are gone."

After the wicked queen had proved, as she thought, that Rika Furude was dead, she felt quite satisfied there was no one in the world now likely to become so beautiful as herself, so she stepped up to her mirror and asked:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall,  
Who is most beautiful of all?"

To Takano's vexation the mirror replied:

"Fair queen, at home there is none like thee,  
But over the mountains is Rika Furude free,  
With seven little dwarfs, who are strange to see;  
A thousand times cuter than thou is she."

The queen was furious when she heard this, for she knew the mirror was truthful, and that the hunter must have deceived her, and that Rika Furude still lived. So she sat and pondered over these facts, thinking what would be best to do, for as long as she was not the most beautiful woman in the land, her jealousy gave her no peace. After a time, she decided what to do. First, she painted her face, and whitened her hair; then she dressed herself in old woman's clothes, and was so disguised that no one could have recognized her.

Takano left the castle, and took her way to the wood near the mountains, where the seven little dwarfs lived. She planned to pose as an honorable old peddler, and thus sell lace and stays to Rika Furude, and therefore strangle her; however, Satoko, the third dwarf, had laid out many traps around the cottage in the woods, and her traps were such as no living man or beast had ever seen. Fifty times that day did the wicked queen fall into a pit where open ground had been, or trip over a rope that not even her subtle arts could detect, was be clasped tight in a woven mattress that carried her up high into the air, to swing and shriek until some kind soul let her down. By the end of it all, the queen was weary and her wares were all ruined, and she had not even been able to penetrate into the nearer reaches of the forest where the dwarves had their cottage.

So the wicked queen returned home, passing her looking-glass as she went, and the mirror said,

"Queen, thou art not the cutest now;  
Rika Furude over the mountain's brow  
Is still a thousand times more kawaii than thou."

"Shut up." replied the queen, and went to brood in her tower.

At length, she determined to try again. "I must think of something else," she said to herself, "to get rid of that odious child." Now this wicked queen had a mighty army at her command, and full of wrath, she borrowed some of their arms and armor and set forth to cut her way through the forest (and its traps) or die trying.

She exhausted her arrows long before she crossed the mountain, trying to assess the danger of the path before her, and before long her armor was battered and her helm was dented from falling rocks and swinging logs. She had strapped her disguise to her back, for she knew Rika Furude would not like an armed knight into her little cottage, but before long the extensive array of traps and pitfalls defeated her, scattered her wares, and forced the wicked queen to return to her castle.

The mirror spoke as she walked past:

"Queen, thou art the fairest here,  
But not when Snow-white is near;  
Over the mountains still is she,  
Cuter a thousand times than thee."

As the looking-glass thus spoke, the queen trembled and quaked with rage. "Rika Furude shall die," cried she, "If it costs me my own kingdom!"

Then she went into a lonely forbidden chamber where no one was allowed to come, and ordered her general Okonogi to come to her. "There is a cottage filled with treasure over the mountains!" cried she. "Send your men to take it and kill all within!"

The entire army of the kingdom assembled, knights and chargers and foot soldiers all, and went again over the mountains to the dwarfs' cottage. But clever Satoko had laid so many and so devious of traps, that only a small contingent made their way to the cottage, and these were easily beaten by the dwarves with their heavy mining hammers and pickaxes. Okonogi, who had been soundly beaten, retreated in disarray, but not after the dwarves had painted rude things on his armor and Rika Furude herself had shot an arrow through his helmet.

The general returned to Takano and said "There is a tiny blonde devil in dwarve's clothing that lives in that cottage, and the dwarves themselves are protective and fierce, most especially the one with short auburn hair whose war cry is 'I shall take thou home', and neither I nor my surviving men will set foot o'er those mountains again for gold or love or magic or death itself. Forsooth, I, your general, was even soundly beaten by them and sent back with humiliating threats upon my armor, and the young princess considered me so little a threat that she hath also sent thou this message."

And he plucked off his helm, which had an arrow in it, and handed the scroll tied thereof to the wicked queen, who took it and unrolled it in surprise.

_Dear Queen Takano_

_Cute is cute and so am I,_  
_But beauty is in a different eye,_  
_And there can both be a cutest and a fairest_  
_So I'll stay in my cottage and you in your castle so terraced._

_–Rika Furude_

And the wicked queen finally realized that beauty and adorability were two different things, and glared at her mirror. "Mirror mirror on the wall, Rika may be cute, but who is the fairest one of all?" she cried imperiously.

And the mirror answered promptly;

"Young queen, thou are so wondrous fair,  
None can with thee at all compare."

And Queen Takano was contented, and ceased her persecution of the young princess, and Rika Furude played with the dwarves in a victory dance around a pile of armor from the despoiled army, and they all lived happily ever after.


	5. Day 5: Smoke, Fog, and Haze (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I planned to make this a cute little shippy thing about Keiichi being a stage magician and Mion volunteering as his lovely assistant, but then I realized that I haven't written a single horror prompt for this very horror-oriented anime, and that idea…sort've went out the window.

Keiichi Maebara was the greatest magician of his time, in no small part because he was only 17 years old and already at the top of his game.

His specialty was the seeming of bringing his five special puppets to life, making them flit about the stage with a liveliness that belied their porcelain-and-glass flesh.

The smallest one, a girl in a green summer dress with wide violet eyes, he called Rika, and it played with and conjured kittens from out of thin air. But the glassy eyes always seemed solemn and sad, no matter how brightly she chirped or how wide her smile seemingly was.

The other smallest had been scrapped from another magician's vampire doll, and still had one sharp tooth and bright, mischievous red glass eyes. But the small mop of blonde hair was short and fluffy, and it was dressed in a pink sleeveless shirt and jean shorts. He called it Satoko, and it conjured things in and out of the audience's pockets like a tiny dervish until one never knew if one's possessions were coming or going.

The next doll was close to Keiichi in age, an auburn-haired girl with glassy eyes as bright and blue as a cloudless summer sky, clothed in a long white dress. It played as his knife target and partner, and each strike made the audiences gasp for breath, for not one manipulating wire was cut even as sharp knives peppered an outline of the doll onto its wooden target board. She seemed almost alive as she bobbed and flickered behind its master, until more than one critic was ready to swear that she was merely a real girl in doll's clothing.

The last two were identical green-haired female dolls, but dressed differently. He called one Mion and the other Shion, and Mion had a yellow shirt and jeans, and Shion had a white shirt and black skirt, and Mion's hair was tied into a ponytail, while Shion's hung loose except for her bangs, which were pulled back by a yellow ribbon. They served as his troublemakers, causing mayhem on the set and upsetting everything, until he and Rena managed to set all aright at the very end, usually in an explosion and a burst of colored smoke.

As once said in a German opera, however, bad apples ruined whole barrels. A famed critic named Takano Miyo said that Keiichi was a fraud, and that the dolls were all animatronics. People stopped coming to his shows, and his audiences dwindled.

Then Takano Miyo died, strangled to death in her own home, and people found out that she had been funding illicit military operations in third world countries. An investigation was started, but aside from the odd shape of the ligature marks on her neck, there were no clues. No one had seen anyone go into her house, and there was no evidence of anyone on the cameras she had set up all over her property.

People told Keiichi Maebara they were sorry for doubting him, and he had gotten a lucky break, that Takano had died when she had. Keiichi merely smiled awkwardly, scratching his cheek, and said he didn't really pay attention or care about to critics; he much preferred spending time playing with his puppets and creating new magic tricks.

He only noticed a few days later that the Mion doll had cracks in its slim porcelain fingers that he couldn't explain.

Life continued on as normal, and even though Keiichi had taken the Mion doll out of the show for a few weeks, first for repairs, and then because he was quite frankly uneasy, eventually he had to put it back in. The look in those blank teal eyes had somehow seemed accusing whenever he passed it in his dressing room, abandoned and lost, and sometimes the sheen of the glass sometimes looked like the glimmer of tears, when he glimpsed the doll's eyes out of the corner of his gaze. So he put it back in, and it seemed like all the other dolls danced the harder the moment it pitter-pattered onto the stage.

Several weeks later, as he was driving to a larger show with his dolls in the back, Keiichi's car was hit by a drunk driver, and when he got out to help, the man, a notorious local thug named Teppei Hojo, mugged him and ran away. Sympathy poured in to the wounded magician, whose ribs were broken and both eyes blacked, but he only smiled and said he was glad he was the only one hurt, and that he was a man who could take a beating, and there wasn't any permanent damage to anything important, either to himself, his props, or his car. Still, there was public outcry in sympathy, and demands to hunt down the miscreant –and tips on how to do so– poured into the police.

Only days later, the sympathetic public rejoiced when Teppei Hojo's car suffered under a malfunction and he was sent pinwheeling into heavy traffic –miraculously, only he was hurt. In fact, the drunken thug was killed outright in the collision, whereas the other cars only suffered minor damage, and the passengers a few bruises. A short police inspection found that Hojo's engine had almost certainly been tampered with, and a stern lecture was delivered to the public about vigilante justice and taking matters into their own hands.

It was only after Keiichi got out of intensive care, when he was inspecting the dolls for damage, that he noticed motor oil on Satoko's tiny white hands.

Putting his nervous thoughts aside, he didn't take her out of the show as he had Mion –Keiichi cleaned the doll's hands almost timidly, and resolved to throw himself into his performances as though nothing else mattered.

For the next several months, revenue increased as more and more people heard of either the increasingly popular and skilled magician or his troubles in the business, but then, like a black cloud, trouble came again. A hard-eyed man that some people had seen around Takano's house many times in the past began lurking around Keiichi and his shows, glaring, simmering, pacing. People said his given name was Okonogi, but no one was quite sure about what he did for a living or even who he really was. Some said he was a stalker, others said he was Takano Miyo's lover who blamed Keiichi for her death, others still said that he was one of her guns for hire who, yet again, suspected the magician of foul play.

Sensation struck the newspapers one morning when Okonogi was found dead in Keiichi Maebara's very own dressing room, one of the throwing knives Keiichi used in his act buried in the dead man's back and multiple other stab wounds littering his body. It seemed certain at any moment that the young magician was going to be arrested –until nearly twenty witnesses, and no less than three security cam feeds, gave evidence that Keiichi Maebara was in Tokyo at his father's art exhibition for the entire day leading up to Okonogi's death. Keiichi rushed back to help the police, but other than information about who and how his dressing room could be accessed, the officers in charge of the case needed little from him.

It was only later, when Keiichi opened her locked suitcase for the show, that he noticed the Rena doll had a spot and some speckles of rusty dark red on her otherwise spotless white dress, and her blue eyes seemed wider and somehow less innocent than before.

Crowds now flocked to see Keiichi Maebara and his miraculously lifelike dolls, which pranced about the stage even more believably than before. It hardly seemed as if the magician was guiding them at all, and many people took the after-show opportunities to poke and prod at the amazing props, as if to confirm the fact that they were, really, dolls after all. Keiichi encouraged this behavior with a tight smile and shadows under his eyes, as if he, too, was not entirely sure of the authenticity of his own act.

Despite the fact that no one had ever even remotely proved even a distant connection to Keiichi and the deaths of Takano Miyo, Teppei Hojo, and Okonogi, there were rumors in some of the distant parts of the theater, and whispers on the streets, and chats in online forums, that accused the 17-year-old of being the cause of all three murders. After all, as such an unbelievably skilled stage magician, surely he didn't need to actually be at the scene of the crime when the murder took place. After all, with the consideration for being physically present at the scene removed, there was nothing to prove he hadn't. Some obscure prop could have caused the ligature marks on Takano's neck. Every stage magician had a in-depth knowledge of engine mechanics. And he could have easily set some form of trap for the unsuspecting Okonogi, for, after all, wasn't trickery, misdirection, and traps his forte and the way he made a living?

Enough of this kind of pertinent information made the police take notice, and an old detective named Oishi was assigned to the reopened cases. He followed Keiichi around closely, picked apart nearly every trick he could get at, and even got the magician drunk at one point.

Keiichi had mumbled into his cup that sometimes even he wasn't sure how the dolls did what they did. That he was becoming afraid of them. That sometimes he wondered if they had–

And Oishi wrote it all down in his little black book.

One evening, thick with mist, Keiichi was walking home along the river, with Oishi following behind in his squad car. Keiichi swore to police later that the mist was too thick for him to see anything, but he had heard a _smash_ of glass behind him and a strangled cry from the detective, and had run back to help. He found the windshield shattered and some of the shards of glass bloodied, but neither he nor the inspectors afterwards could account for them. Oishi's car, at most, had been going three or four miles an hour, so as not to overtake the ambling Keiichi. Even if he had stopped as suddenly as his car could, he would, at most, have jerked in his seat, and probably not even then. Another person's footsteps would have been heard on so silent a night.

Keiichi swore later, in court, looking shaken and pale, as to the fact he heard something being dragged away towards the river as he had stared at the car in horror. With cross-questioning, he added that he thought the something must have been large and heavy. He had run down, thinking that Oishi had been attacked and, disoriented, was dragging himself in a direction he thought was safety, but as he broke out onto the river bank, he couldn't see anything. He had searched futilely, following what looked like bloodied drag marks in the gravel, but they ended at the river and he could find nothing else. It was then he had the presence of mind to go back and call for help on Oishi's radio.

Shaking and rambling now, Keiichi had muttered to his parents as they pulled him out of the courtroom that he thought he had seen the Shion doll later in his dressing room with some water weeds tangled in her synthetic hair.

The case seemed open-and-shut to the prosecuting council, especially taking into account what they could read of Oishi's notebook, which they found when they fished his bloated body, as expected, from the river. Keiichi Maebara was suffering from a persecution complex, and delusions as to the incredibly realistic dolls he used as props in his act. It pushed him to murder those he thought most a threat to his rising star and current success.

The verdict was life in prison.

Keiichi had looked stricken as the verdict was announced, but also almost relieved. As though he had taken his delusion so deeply to heart that he was glad for the chance to be away from his so-called animated dolls.

When his parents visited him later in his cell and asked what he wanted them to do with his effects, he looked them in the eyes and said:

"Burn everything but the dolls, and give those to a museum."

Night fell, and Keiichi Maebara got up from his cot to look out the window and see if the mist was rising again. The smoke from the prison kitchen had made him nauseous, and he wanted to clear his head, too. Looking into the thick plexiglass frame, Keiichi expected to see his own mirrored reflection.

Instead he looked into the glassy eyes of a doll.

__

_Kei-chan, are you abandoning me, like you did before, after I took care of that woman for you?_

_Kei-chan, don't you want to play with us again? I took the man away so he couldn't bother you anymore._

__

_Keiichi-kun, aren't I a good assistant? I stopped that man from rummaging through your things._

__

_Ni-san, aren't I a good little sister? I made sure that man can't hurt you again._

__

_Mew, the museum didn't like us, sir._

**_And we didn't like them, either._ **


	6. Day 6: Missed Connections (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually a poem I did for a creative writing class in high school. Neat, huh? Boy can I recycle.

It's not me  
It's not mine  
I am not the one who ordered this.

Your suffering is inflicted in my name  
But I promise, I promise,  
I promise I have never wanted this.

I have watched over you all your life  
And the lives of all those around you  
And you are all very precious to me.

Oh thou pitiful human who hast strayed,  
What doth thou wish from this world?

Is it forgiveness?  
I forgive thee, I forgive thee.  
It is your forgiveness that I seek.

I am a powerless god, incapable of doing anything but watching,  
Observing from a forced, agonizing distance.

For long enough to tilt a man on the verge of madness  
I have watched unspeakable things be committed in my name,  
With my protests gone unheard.

And I have wept and begged  
As people have been sacrificed on my altar  
Because I have never wanted any such thing.

And now you are persecuted  
And murders are committed and called my curse  
But I, Oyashiro-sama, have never wished for such a thing.


	7. Day 7: Outside the Window (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another poem from the same project. Aren't I a clever-clog.

The first time is a jolt  
Like waking up from a bad dream  
In which something terrible has happened.

The cicadas cry mournfully outside our home  
Accompanying the sticky heat of early June  
And I am sweating inside my blankets as the morning comes.

The walk to school is quiet  
Because my best friend senses that something is wrong  
And so do I, even though the water in the drains is as soothing as ever.

Even though the sleepy murmur of the cicadas drones on in the background,  
Even though school is as boring and our playmates as rambunctious as always,  
And even though everything in our village is as peaceful and drowsy as ever,  
I still sense something wrong.

The second time is like a shot of Novocain  
Stinging and numb all at the same time  
And it feels like my head has been stuffed with balls of cotton.

 _It's not right._  
That thought buzzes in my skull and hums in my bones.  
And I want the world to stop so I can listen.

 _This shouldn't be possible._  
I can predict things right before they happen  
Because they happened before, and now they're happening again.

But nobody else remembers what happened before  
And I am forced to watch as everything is propelled towards a bloody tragedy  
And I wake up again.

The third time is different, but only by a little  
And instead of one terrible thing, another happens  
And my friends still die in horrifying ways.

The fourth time is the same as before  
Different but similar  
And this time my friends are the killers,  
Not the victims.

The fifth time is like falling inside a void  
Because I am starting to realize  
That this isn't a dream.

I try to warn them again  
Because maybe I wasn't as urgent as I needed to be last time  
But nobody believes what I say  
Because prophecies aren't true.

By the sixth time I am tired  
Of the constant droning of the cicadas  
And I want to see any other month but June.

And I realize  
As I linger before the next rewind  
That I die in each loop, too  
With my belly cut open and a chloroform cloth over my mouth

I realize that Oyashiro-sama is bringing me back to the beginning  
So that I can stop my friends from encountering tragedy  
And that someone is killing me each time I rewind.

A strong will creates destiny, and destiny forms the future  
So that this person with their strong will to see me dead  
Is forcing me to relive this bloody June over and over again  
And watch each unavoidable tragedy  
That my friends enact.

The summer days drag on  
Each one blurring together in their sameness  
Carried by the hot and humid wind.

It rains on the same days for the same length of time  
And the sun comes out precisely on schedule  
And I have memorized an entire library's worth of scripts

Scripts of fragments of worlds that work like stories  
With every line burned into my memory  
By their endless repetition.

I can predict everything that will happen  
And I know every facet of the stage  
But I am still helpless to stop the actors from rushing to their doom.

By the hundredth rewind, I have grown tired of fighting fate  
I still don't know who or what my enemy is  
And I am still trapped in this endless month of June.


	8. Day 8: Food (2018)

Food is very important in Hinamizawa.

There's the food we all share together, during lunch. There's the competition we have, when Keiichi finally realizes how horrible his cooking is and what a loyal little sister Satoko actually was.

There's the lunch when Satoko finally snaps, and cries, and vomits, and Keiichi discovers his capacity for murder.

There's the ohagi that Mion's grandmother makes in offering every year for the dam direction Oyassan, and the fragment where Oishi finally finds that out and makes his peace with the Sonozakis.

There's the ohagi that finally unhinges Keiichi, and makes him think his friends are trying to kill him.

There's the cream puffs that Hanyuu likes and will do absolutely anything for, even bend the rules of time and space at my request.

There's the unfinished dinner in the refrigerator, and the empty soy sauce on the table, that tells Rena how we died when Shion goes mad.

There's the time I shocked my mother when she tried to teach me how to cook, by going through every dish perfectly and without hesitation the first time through, because I had been spending decades cooking for myself and Satoko.

There's the kimichi that makes Hanyuu weep to see it, and I always include it in the club games as a matter of course.

There's the flat, acidic taste of wine in the back of my throat whenever I had to try and dull the emotional pain.

Food is very important in Hinamizawa.


	9. Day 9: The Letter Poem (2018)

A is for Akasaka, who is strong and brave!

B is for Batcha, who makes many graves!

C is for Curse, which we fear most of all!

D is for Demon, inside us they crawl!

E is for Exaggeration, which makes our minds sway!

F is for Hinamizawa Fighters, and baseball they play!

G is for Graves, may they never be found!

H is for Hinamizawa, where fun abounds!

I is for Iberaki, where Rena once dwelled!

J is for Jail, where that one druggie yelled!

K is for Keiichi, Magician of the Mouth!

L is for Loser, when your club luck goes south!

M is for Mion, best leader around!

N is for Nipah, Rika's most cutest sound!

O is for Oishi, the detective who guesses!

P is for Pissed-Off, when Rena makes messes!

Q is for Quiz, how Keiichi rose to the top!

R is for Rika, whose determination will never stop!

S is for Shion, the twin we forgot!

T is for Teacher, who's never put on the spot!

U is for Unity, how we beat the odds!

V is for Vengeance, how it tangles with gods!

W is for Watanagashi, where we slice open cots!

X is for…a word, which in Higurashi, there is not.

Y is for Dear You, touching songs that makes us sad.

And Z is for…another word I can't find, which honestly makes me mad.


	10. Day 10: Addict (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written a gory psychosis scene in a while, so here, have some trauma for this day's prompt.

The underground torture chamber hadn't been filled with this much blood in a very, very long time.

The floor was awash with it, the crosspiece stained, and the limply dangling corpse, held up like a puppet in a show window before her, was simply soaked in the brightly dripping gore.

Mion cried in the outside cells, poor, poor, filthy Mion. It was no more than she deserved, after all, for letting Satoshi-kun die while she sat idly by and blithely lied about it to her sister. This bloodbath was her cleansing ritual, no less saccharine and dark with sin than she was.

Shion's hand felt numb where she held the knife. It wasn't grief, it wasn't guilt, it wasn't even shock or horror.

It was pure revelation.

_How could something so bad feel so good?_

Oh, a cliche line if ever that was. But it did. The feel of her knife sliding into doll-like Satoko's flesh, turning her into a broken little blonde ragdoll in truth…the desperate clenching grip of the muscles as they tried to stymie the rich red flow of blood…the spurt and gush as she wrenched free the blade…oh, how desperate little Satoko-chan's body was to preserve her worthless life, air rasping in her lungs as her tragically brave tissues tried to sacrifice themselves to keep the source of her injury lodged in her flesh, preventing it from going any deeper or pulling out any further.

But the human body, in this case, was wrong. Satoko _needed_ to die, and there was nothing that the struggling organism that housed her leeching spirit could do to save itself, or her.

It felt amazing.

The power that this desperate struggle gave into her hand…it was like no feeling Shion had ever experienced before. All of every life on the planet struggled for one thing, though humans masked their desire with petty trivialities –money, love, power, success– and that thing was _sustaining life_. 

Every moment of every person's life was dedicated to just that, preserving their own. Breeding continued the species, true, but it also meant one could live on in one's offspring. Money preserved life, bought amenities needed to prolong it, food and shelter and medicine. Power and success brought pleasure, and increased the lifespan and the memories held within it.

This thing before her, this dangling bit of meat and cotton, had once been a living, breathing entity. It had struggled and gasped and fought for life, to live, had had ambitions and dreams and hopes and fears and friends and _family_.

Now it was nothing. Less than refuse, less than trash.

 _Shion_ had brought about this unholy alchemy, this transformation on a cosmic level. Frankenstein had crowed about bringing life to the dead, but he failed to mention the sheer exhilaration of bringing death to the living. The dance of nerves thrilling along Shion's spine, the rush of adrenaline as the ultimate struggle in Satoko, in Kimiyoshi, even in Rika whose death had been by her own hand…was lost. Snuffed out like a candle, crushed in her grip like a broken butterfly.

The last fragments of Shion Sonozaki's sanity were lost, lost in the maddening surge of sudden, heady power.

The underground torture chamber hadn't been filled with this much laughter in a very, very long time.


	11. Day 11: Eye Contact (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws a stereotypical Soulmate Color AU onto the pile and scurries away with a hiss*

Shion's world had been grey and colorless since the day she was born. She had been okay with that, it wasn't like her options mattered on anything anyways.

But the day she met Satoshi…she ceased to stop caring.

It wasn't even immediately obvious, just the slow, subtle darkening at the corners of her vision, like the feeling of a bruise or the shading on the inside of a violet flower. Bleeding into her vision, marvelous shades of red and wine and a sharp fuchsia stain, the colors of some of the signs in the streets, and the _saki_ in bottles, and Satoshi's beautiful, beautiful eyes. Next came the colors of the sky, the grass, the blue of Rika Furude's hair, and the day she finally saw the bright yellow of Satoshi-kun's hair, she thought her heart might burst with happiness.

But Satoshi…didn't. He saw every color but hers. Green-white colorblind, and he would "Muu…" and ruffle her hair, say to "Mion" that he thought it was because she was so close to the purity of angelic white. That he didn't care, that he loved her anyways.

But the worthless spare seemed to break everything she touched.

* * *

Mion's heart beat excitedly for the day she would see in color, and she constantly made a game of trying to see which indistinguishable shades of grey would solidify into which vibrant hue.

She'd nearly panicked when Shion met Satoshi, because great, how big of a frickin' giveaway could that be!? Starting to see colors only weeks, months, _years_ after meeting one's soulmate? Get real!

Good thing Satoshi (forgive her, Shion) was such a ditz, and good thing he never talked about it to anyone, not that anyone in Hinamizawa would actually _listen_ to a Hojo. Shion's cover would've been blown wide open from that first week, and Mion shuddered to think what Batcha would've done, to both of them. Mion was a willing accomplice, after all.

And then… _he_ moved in.

Keiichi Maebara. From that very first day the soft cityboy had walked into their classroom, their unholy domain, dripping wet from the "welcome" trap Satoko had set, Mion's heart turned over in her chest. Those periwinkle eyes, meeting hers…she'd never known color could truly be so beautiful.

It was fast, after that. Mion had walked outside less than a week later and seen the sky, so big, so _blue_ , with puffy white horsetail clouds chasing one another across that vast empty bowl, and she had stood and stared upwards for so long, filling herself with that bright, sunny view, that she was late to her and Rena and Keiichi's meeting place at the end of the road, by the mill.

She made it, though, and as they turned to walk to school, Keiichi's eyes sparkled when they met hers, and he told her about how very green the grass had been when he ran out the door.

* * *

Rika despised color.

She knew that Satoko still waited in hope for the day that her world would bloom, knew that Rena painted and drew and scribbled with unmarked colors, to hang the artwork up in her trash-heap fort and await the day when she could truly see her pieces for what they were. She knew Irie, who said he didn't mind (was that why he like maid dresses, though, so much? Because they were already black-and-white?), and she knew dozens upon dozens of villagers who never had and probably never would find their destined soulmates.

Rika would change places with them in a heartbeat.

Her world had always been in color, since the day she was born. It wasn't that she was soulmates with Hanyuu (thank Oyashiro-sama, perhaps ironically, for that), because Hanyuu had already met her soulmate centuries before, and he had died. Hanyuu herself said that Rika had been able to distinguish colors long before the goddess had made bold to introduce herself, coloring easily and correctly with crayons while the other children scribbled white suns and purple grass, orange roses and green water.

Rika had looked in the library for answers, but the Hinamizawa library was small and antiquated, more fiction than fact.

Hanyuu had told her that her ability to see color was because she didn't have a soulmate. That she had been born complete already, and didn't have an other half to find.

So Rika hated color. Every vibrant shade and hue that she saw as she opened her infantile eyes again and again, rewound back to her birth, she hated. She _despised_ red and pink and orange and yellow, and she _loathed_ green and blue and purple and black, and she absolutely _detested_ grey and white and iridescence and every other color that could be named.

Because they were reminders that Rika was alone. She would always be alone, and had always been alone, and she had no soulmate to count on.

Because her world was already in color.


	12. Day 12: Fire-starters (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more tired and less motivated I am, the more likely it is I'll write a poem for this. It's a correlational relationship.

Keiichi Maebara, burning bright,

Stirring hearts, a shining knight.

Earning the title of "Magician of the Mouth",

He fights for his friends

With all the substance of his house

Loyal, caring, daring, bold

Courageous, strong, a heart of gold

Red-hot,

He strikes the spark

And shatters the plot

Of the evil in the dark.


	13. Day 13: Dream-catcher (2018)

Hanyuu wasn't good for much, but she was still –a goddess. Despite how useless she was, she could still do –things– within the boundary of Hinamizawa. None of them were even remotely useful, at least in Rika's esteemed opinion, except her ability to rewind time and thus create new world-fragments.

But Hanyuu liked it anyways. She felt sort of like the mother she had been for far too short a time, and never mind the fact her appearance was scarcely older than Rika's eternally-ten-years-old body.

She liked being able to watch over everyone, to see the choices they made and to be there for them, always, a presence just behind the shoulder of every Hinamizawan, born or made. It made her feel useful and wanted, like she could comfort them and support them, even though she could do nothing but watch –and apologize when things went wrong.

So many apologies made…all of them unheard.

But, still. She walked through their dreams, too, waking and sleeping, something Rika had never been able to understand.

_"Isn't it a burden?"_

Yes. Of course it was. But that was why she did it. Thousands of years ago, Hanyuu had died for the people here, and taken all their tears, all their pain, all the blame and hurt and sadness of this land, and cleansed it with the blood of her sacrifice. This land was hers, and it's pain and hurt and blood and sadness were hers, her burden, her cross to carry.

So she threaded her way through the dreams of her citizens, just as intangibly as she drifted amidst them in their waking hours, like a mist always unseen and seldom felt. She fluttered her fingers over the warp and weft of their reality, feeling the tiny strands of wishes and thoughts that glittered and flowed through the their subconscious, their nightmares and hopes and dreams and longings. She took those many woven mind-tapestries, each of a different man, woman, or child that called Hinamizawa their home, and wrapped them around herself like dozens upon dozens of fluffy duvets, protective and sheltering.

Like a benign specter, Hanyuu haunted the dreams of those she had dominion over, weaving their thoughts into veils of reality that she pulls across their eyes, granting small wishes and tying luck together.

Because it is her duty.


	14. Day 14: Coffee & Tea (2018)

Coffee, dark and bitter, steady, able to be specified to the exact taste of the consumer.

Tea, green and brown and red and yellow, as variable as the leaves in autumn.

Rena was like coffee with liberal amounts of cream and sugar, sweet and smooth on the surface but swirling with gravity beneath.

Mion was like tea, as dramatic in all her moods and differences as the many sharp distinctions of tea.

Keiichi liked both tea and coffee.

So, would it be _café noir_ or green tea in the end?


	15. Day 15: Dread (2018)

Like a prickling wave of ants crawling over the skin of the victim, Hinamizawa Syndrome caused paranoia so strong that it was physically tangible. The smallest of deeds and actions took on worlds of horrific meanings.

Fear sat on the tongue, so thick you could choke on it.

Suspicion coiled throughout your body, so much that your muscles grew stiff with it.

Thoughts buzzed in your head, so malicious your brain rattled and tore itself apart on them.

Takano was more correct than she had ever guessed, to say that Hinamizawa Syndrome could shake the foundations of the world. Humans were so easily controlled, after all, by tiny shifts and fluctuations of the chemicals inside their brains.

What more horrific damage could a parasite actually do? Parasites in the digestive system could suck the life out of humans even in modern times, slowly but surely. One in the _brain_ , however microscopic?

Disastrous.

It was like sand in the gears of a clock, and the timepieces in Hinamizawa were constantly wracking themselves to pieces, as their mechanisms meshed and tore apart in an endless regenerative cycle of death.

No cure. No preventative. No safety net.

 _Run, run far away._ A warning seemed to whisper through the bucolic Japanese countryside, making neighbors veer away and tourists change their travel plans. _This place is not for the likes of you._ Like heroes in a grotesque fantasy, only those already condemned could dwell within this Ground Zero of cataclysmic infection; only those already at risk could breathe in the air thick with poison none could see and few could sense.

The tap of a childish footstep had ended so many lives, and ruined so many more. An extra beat following behind, an invisible presence hovering at the victim's pillow, all these were harbingers of so much worse to come.

You could only hear the apologies when it was too late, when you were already drowning in madness.

Hanyuu sometimes thought she presided over a graveyard of rusted gears scattered like pennies, hands stabbing the sky like fragile spears, and glass shattered sparkling over the ground like a rain of moonstones, glimmering and sharp as fractured needs.

So many broken clocks dwelled in Hinamizawa. They only waited for the final turn of the key to smash them into darkness.


	16. Day 16: The Unrequited Love Poem (2018)

A crumpled flower

Her true love twisted around

Strong despite her fate


	17. Day 17: Dragon (2018)

There were times when being a mighty adventurer was more trouble than it was worth. Sure, Keiichi Maebara got enough gold to make an entire clan of dragons turn pale with jealously, and had enough women throwing themselves at his head that incubi would turn greener than their _oni_ cousins, with a sword so sharp it cut the very air (Rena Cleaver-Smith was a living legend for a _reason_ ) and enough training in the arts of war to whup an entire army (thank you, Satoko the woodsprite, for making his life under her training a _living hell_ ), but as they said, there were some days that it just didn't pay to get out of bed.

Like today.

"It was only a sneeze!" cried Mion Sonozaki, Keiichi's shieldmate and the current reason for his slipping will to live.

"You have to admire her firepower, at least." Shion, her twin, said appreciatively from beside them, medatively contemplating the merrily burning cottage before the trio as Keiichi tried not to pull his own hair out by the roots.

"OUR HOME IS ON FIRE, CAN YOU NOT AT LEAST TRY TO PUT IT OUT!?" he screeched, glaring at the two remarkably unpreterubed females and jabbing his forefinger at the inferno. Mion blinked her slitted golden eyes at him, then and scratched her scale-freckled cheek with a taloned finger, laughing sheepishly.

"I, um, can't really…do that…" she mumbled, shrinking in on herself and lowering her voice with each word as she blushed right down to the green patches of scales covering her cheeks. Shion grinned and slapped her twin on the back with a slender-clawed hand.

"Well, it was time to find a better house than some rickety old hut, anyhoo!" she announced cheerfully. "And now you know why all dragons have fireproof possessions, Kei-chan."

"MY PETUNIAS!" the mighty hero shrieked as fresh gout of fire forked out of the burning thatch and into the trio's garden, running towards the burning house as he ignored the merry chattering behind him.

This was the last time he trusted his two dragon friends in a wooden building.


	18. Day 18: The Vessel (2018)

_"This place is a chalice, filled to the brim with those who think nothing of taking human lives."_

Akasaka had thought little of Rika-chan's words at the time. Hinamizawa, a vessel of evil? This quaint, pleasant, humble little village, numbering no more than 2,000 citizens all told? A haven of _murderers?_

True, he had just fought thugs for the possession of a kidnapped child, but –murderers? _Here?_

Preposterous.

He didn't think about it again until the time of the Great Hinamizawa Disaster, and then her words consumed him.

_"This place is a chalice, filled to the brim with those who think nothing of taking human lives."_

He phoned Oishi, that old cop that had given him such useful advice back in 1978. He asked to meet, and to talk –to ask if anyone else had survived. In his heart, he'd hoped that someone had taken Rika-chan, the village's precious shrine maiden and the living incarnation of Oyashiro-sama, to safety, somehow, somewhere.

But he was wrong.

1979\. Oyassan, the older man he had played mahjong with during his investigation, was lynched to death.

1980\. The Hojo couple fell to their deaths.

1981\. Rika Furude's parents joined them in death.

1982\. Tamae Hojo was killed and Satoshi Hojo lost.

1983\. The Great Hinamizawa Disaster.

June, 1983. Rika Furude had died.

_"This place is a chalice, filled to the brim with those who think nothing of taking human lives."_

_"-but if all the successive incidents have been planned, then surely my death is part of that plan?"_

_"…I don't want to die."_

He had failed her. The saccharine cup of Hinamizawa had been filled to overflowing, and Rika Furude had been forced to drink it down to the dregs before her final, fatal slumber.


	19. Day 19: Greeting (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's my birthday! I'm nineteen! Golden birthday, whoo-hoo!  
> (Originally posted June 19th 2018)

Inside this dark place

Fighting for my happiness

You reached for my hand


	20. Day 20: Animals (2018)

You bought me a bear

With your very own allowance

And then disappeared.


	21. Day 21: Great Minds (2018)

The temple and the demon  
Sisters side-by-side  
Changed around,  
Changed again,  
And changed once more for luck.  
One who lost her love  
And the other who'll never get it  
Rattling the die as they please.  
One's an hair,  
The other an outcast,  
But they can switch places in the blink of an eye  
And no one can tell,  
Not parents, not friends, not family  
And they can play with others as they please.  
For as the Germans say,  
_"Great minds think alike, but fools rarely differ."_


	22. Day 22: Shopping (2018)

Rika Furude shops carefully –always with one eye open, ready to leap to her friend Satoko's aid if ever a shopkeeper starts treating her harshly. Though many give the young miko discounts, and no few offer their wares for free, she always counted out the proper amount of change carefully, her pale fingers carefully counting out silver and copper disks onto counters taller than she was like the delicate legs of a butterfly shaking off pollen.

Satoko shops briskly –a whirlwind of activity and shopping bags, striding with the stiff determination of a soldier on campaign from one sale site to another, carrying her overfull cloth bags like trophies on her arms as they bounce and jostle with her swift strides. Everything is planned to exact detail, up to and including cushion time for the rude clerks and the shopkeepers who always ignore her.

Rena is a distracted shopper –she hardly ever knows if she's coming or going, and interesting things always seem to find their way into her baskets. They may be what she considers "cute", or just a rare little thing that might not be there when she comes again, but her grocery loads are always full to bursting and brightly colorful. If it wasn't for her mother's alimony payments, and a few lectures, Rena might break the banks every time she ventured out the door.

Satoshi shops even worse than Rena –he's forgetful, losing his change, dropping his purchases, fumbling inside his pockets for the money he needs, and being a Hojo doesn't make it any easier. He gets used to just staring outside shop windows and looking in to hope, imagining he has the money and the acceptance to walk inside and buy anything, buy everything. Even when he does have the money, he's so forgetful that he still stands outside and stares, hoping – years of poverty and neglect don't relinquish their grip so easily.

Keiichi doesn't shop –his mother still takes care of that for him. He regrets it, frequently, when she and his father have to leave town for some specious art thing that lasts a few days, and he has to fend for himself in the big cruel world, but whenever his mother comes home the promise to learn is always put off to tomorrow, tomorrow.

Shion shops like Mion –she has to, except sometimes in later years. Then she can shop however she pleases without fear of rumors getting back about Onee and ruining their tradable facade, and the freedom still makes her giddy years down the road. She shops in a this-and-that way, making a list and checking it twice as she goes down the isles, but never really going about fulfilling it with any point or purpose.

Mion shops like the heir she is –business, business, pleasure. Her competitive and sunny nature might overpower her training at most times, but Mion still takes care of absolutely anything and everything that pops up that's necessary first, then attends to the more enjoyable activities afterwards. She tells herself that it's just getting rid of the boring chaff first, but she still does it, each and every time.


	23. Day 23: Fear (2018)

His mouth tasted like grit and grass.

Wait –earth?

Jiro Tomitake's eyes flew open. He was lying, facedown, on the shoulder of what looked like the road leading outside Hinamizawa. His glasses were missing, and a surge of adrenaline flooded through him at the realization, accompanying his last train of thought before unconsciousness-

_-Takano's a traitor?! Okonogi, too!? How could I have not have seen this, how could I-_

Invisibly presences loomed around him, and Tomitake lunged forward to grab the sturdy length of deadwood he saw lying a few feet away. It was no sniper rifle, but he wouldn't be taken unawares and unarmed the second time!

Brandishing his makeshift cudgel, Tomitake lurched to his feet with a roar. If the Yamainu came back to finish him, they would find it a tough battle.

Except…

Except…

Miyo Takano didn't leave things half-done. Why was he here, unharmed, why did…

Tomitake's eyes flew open wide.

Why did his blood itch?

_"-synthesized Level Five, at which point the terminal symptoms of Hinamizawa Syndrome-"_

No. No no no no no no. All the samples of H-173 had been destroyed! The clinic had…

The clinic, where Takano ruled.

"No, no, no no no nononononononono-"

It _itches_ , all over it itches, and Tomitake has to exert a formidable amount of willpower not to rip off his shirt and start scratching himself everywhere like a cartoon character who'd just jumped into a patch of poison ivy. His veins _still_ itched unbearably regardless of his will.

And Tomitake knew, he _knew_ that he shouldn't scratch –but it was like a rash. You had to scratch. And even worse, unlike a real rash, he got no satisfaction, however brief, not a single moment of relief from that relentless boiling itch.

_Takano betrayed us all! That bitch! How could she? How could she!?_

She had sent the Yamainu after him to finish the job…there was Okonogi with his mouth stretched wide in a syncopathic grin, like a dancing scythe-edge of white in the humid summer darkness.

"Bastard!" Tomitake swung the length of wood furiously his head, aiming for the kill. "You betrayed us! You betrayed everyone! The people here are depending on us to find a cure!"

Okonogi dodged at the last second, and his men tackled Tomitake, forcing him into the dirt. Tomitake thrashed with all his strength, striking out again and again against his attackers, connecting frequently, by there was just no end to them, and they hit back, often just missing his club by a few moments. He was forced to the ground, again, only this time he had no glasses to fly off his nose. He struggled, cursing them, cursing all of them, but as Okonogi primed what seemed to be tranquilizing dart, there seemed to be no escape.

No escape but one.

Tomitake would not die a victim on a slab, another test rat for Takano and her despicable backers to hack open and study. Like the ancient samurai of old, he would commit _seppuku_ rather than fall into enemy hands, die with his honor unsullied and his capture foiled as a final spit in the eyes of Takano and her minions.

He set his fingertips to his throat, crooked like the talons of some predatory beast, and finally began to scratch.

* * *

`Regarding the Incident on June 20, 1983:`

`Victim was photographer Jiro Tomitake. Deceased was found dead on the shoulder of the road to Okinomiya –the ground was soft enough from recent rain to find traces of some kind of conflict. Deceased ran for a short length, tripped, and thrashed on the ground for several moments. Bruises on body seem to indicate he was struck by assailants with a length of wood similar to the one found a short distance away. Splinters in palms and blood on wood seem to suggest the deceased was using it as a weapon before he fled his prospective attackers. No pursuit indicated on readable ground cover. While prone, the victim then seemed to scratch at his lymph nodes until he struck a major artery. No evidence of drug use.`

``

`–Kurado Oishi`


	24. Day 24: Dictionary Definition (2018)

Higurashi:

• _Tanna japonensis_ , also called the evening cicada or _Higurashi_ , (Japanese: 蜩, 茅蜩, ひぐらし). A species of cicada, a family of insects, and a member of the genus _Tanna_. It is distributed throughout East Asia, and is most common in Japan. It's call is frequently used in Japanese anime to produce mood, atmosphere, or to indicate season.

• Shorthand for the anime series _Higurashi no Naku Koro ni_ , also known as _When They Cry_.


	25. Day 25: Friendship (2018)

United through all

Faithful until every end

That's who I call friends


	26. Day 26: Shadow (2018)

Hanyuu is not the first –by far, not the first– to have done what she did, and it is overwhelmingly likely she will not be the last.

The old Christian saw, "God works in mysterious ways", did not merely apply to deities. It applied to, well, _everything_. And not just anything everything, but everything with a capital "E", everything in the cosmic sense, everything in the powers-that-be sense, everything in the sense of the universe ordering itself to laws that humans couldn't even begin to hope to sense, much less identify and explain.

Because she had died to see a new beginning, because she had willingly sacrificed herself to carry the burdens and tears of others, because she had taken the sin that no one else would accept and shouldered it proudly into death, she was granted a seat in the lowest pantheon, a goddess of a small chunk of land that, so many years ago, was baptized and cleansed by the shedding of her blood.

Less than a ghost, really, a memory of ancient times that only the warp and weft of the land can sense, like a spark running beneath a glass table covered in loose-woven cotton. Sometimes, sometimes, humans can sense her, hear her, briefly; a quiet step behind them –her furious stamping and jumping at a breach of the Saiguden, though only they hear it as if it were in the distance– her tearful "I'm sorry" that goes on without end, which they can only hear at the edges of their hearing, like the whine of an insect.

She has no power outside Hinamizawa –can barely even cross its borders, really, except without being tied to her followers. She fades to less than the ghost she is, and Hanyuu's afraid to go further, lest she disappear entire. But in Hinamizawa, with the citizens of Hinamizawa, she is the guardian deity Oyashiro-sama, and she watches over their lives proudly and with grace.

She can do little but watch.

Gods cannot interfere, because they were made gods. Because they were made gods by the giving up of their mortal flesh, they have left the ability to interact with it behind. Hanyuu cannot wave her hands and bring luck to _Tomita Tofu_ , or snap her fingers and have a puppy appear on the doorstep of the Okumara household, as the youngest son wishes so dearly. She cannot, does not, dares not interfere with mortal lives. Not anymore. Not again.

She is the shadow of the bloodstain that cleansed this land so many centuries ago, but her power to wash clean faded away with that sacrifice.


	27. Day 27: Cleaning (2018)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know about this factoid (blood feeling rather like sticky melted ice cream) not because I am a mass-murderer with no gloves and no morals, but because I had a heavy nosebleed once while on a bike ride and had nothing but my hands to keep myself from staining one of my favorite shirts. Interestingly enough, I discovered this information, and also how to bike one-handed.

Blood is, surprisingly, rather sticky.

Shion remembers hearing about it in some of the torrid novels she's read at St. Lucia Academy (the presence of which surprised her to no end, because why would such a prim and uptight place have horror lining its shelves? Another impenetrable mystery of Christians.), but the reality is still far more pressing than words, even well-written words in dusty-sweet old tomes.

It's still warm, though Rika's tiny sprawled body, buried inexpertly under all those newspapers in a futile attempt to keep the blood from spreading –it blooms in wet, fuzzy patches on the thin cheap paper, crimson blotches welling up behind the black type under you can hardly read anything– or staining the wood permanently, is currently in the process of cooling. She must have hit several very important arteries with that knife Shion had been so careless as to leave in her reach.

Shion's hands are covered in in the glistening ichor, and her bare feet leave smudged, red patches on the dry, cool wooden floorboards as she walks to the telephone and back. The feeling of wood under of wet skin of her feet comforts her, somehow; maybe it's because the sensation is so familiar. Shion's come in from the rain like this in her childhood, and after a bath, and if her socks were wet, and a thousand-and-one other, mundane occurrences that make the smear of wetness under her soles as she moves soothing rather than macabre, and the smooth bare wood under her toes comforting rather than subtly unnatural and repellent.

But it really is sticky. She wipes at her hands with a damp cloth absently as she speaks to Keiichi, keeping the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. She's careful to keep both the cord and the receiver away from the drying patches of blood on Mion's tacky yellow T-shirt. Can't be giving the game away like _that_. Got to keep things as clean as possible.

But this blood, honestly!

If Rika had purposefully gone out to make Shion's life difficult, she could not possibly have done better. The wet red gloves on her hands only smeared and lightened as she wiped at them with the cloth, and Shion frowns as she feel the crusty, feathery splintering of the stuff under her nails as it starts to dry out. While warm, the texture of the blood feels very similar to a melted icy pop, or the drool of ice cream from the bottom of a cone that got all over one's hands. It's a disturbingly familiar sensation, she feels –shouldn't blood feel, oh, different? Less…commonplace?

But no. Aside from those crusty drying flakes, if Shion closed her eyes, she would have been prepared to swear that a cone of ice cream had just been microwave-melted all over her hands. And feet. Like thighs to a plastic chair on a warm day, the soles of her feet stuck to the floor, and shifting minutely produced a soft prickling feeling and a tearing sound, like saran wrap being peeled away from itself, as she broke the seal of the clotting blood.

Shion grinned as she hung up the phone, striding back over to where Rika Furude still lay, covered in a patchwork veil of old newspapers. Her grin faded, and she looked at the splotches and pools and droplets of blood that liberally coated the wooden-floored-and-walled antechamber with a sigh.

This was going to require so much bleach, and scrubbing, and polishing, that she probably wouldn't even see her bed tonight, either.

How bothersomely annoying of Rika.


	28. Day 28: Eavesdropper (2018)

The biggest mistake

Is to eavesdrop in this place

This bloody vale of tears


	29. Day 29: Sugar (2018)

**Ohagi Recipe:**

2 ½ cups glutinous rice  
½ cup Japanese rice  
3 cups water

**For Toppings:**

¾ lb. anko  
½ cup crushed walnuts and 2 tbsp. sugar, ground together  
3 tbsp. black sesame seeds and 1 ½ tbsp. sugar, ground together  
1/3 cup kinako and 2 tbsp. sugar, mixed


	30. Day 30: Dancing (2018)

**Don. Don.**

**Swish.**

Rika let the shrine tool fall into her open palm, the heavy weight of the golden blade at the end making her hand dip just barely.

_Step. Step._

_Jangle, jangle,_ went the bells at the end as she mimed striking down, as though cutting into the earth, and spun smoothly on one foot, transcribing a neat half-circle. She lifted her other hand and made a sweeping gesture across her face as though scattering grain –or something else. She brought it down again –this time on the soft cotton of an old futon, and Rika raked the sharp blade through it, the ancient edge matting and curling the soft fibers as she went.

Her violet eyes flicked to the altar out of habit, but no dimly glowing shape sat atop it. Hanyuu was elsewhere tonight, and in a rare moment of deviation from the dance she had danced hundreds, perhaps even thousands of times –Rika didn't even know the true amount anymore, only that she had done this performance for so long that even thinking about the steps was less than base instinct– she glanced into the crowd.

Men and women who would sob and cringe in terror of the fearsome god Oyashiro-sama's wrath, whose very ardency made them push and shove to better see Rika-chama's yearly tribute, crushed a little girl in a pink sundress against the edge of the altar, the force of the crowd pushing the lilac-haired this way and that as her taller friends strove to keep the smallest of their group from being crammed into a corner.

What they would say, or think, to know that the tiny child in the crowd was the very god they so feared, Rika didn't want to think.

Hanyuu caught her looking away and, amidst the pushing and shoving, managed to send the young _miko_ an encouraging, bright smile.

Rika turned back to her dance, and later, when the last of the cotton balls were drifting like snowflakes down the sluggish river current, she asked Hanyuu why the goddess had seemed so happy as she watched Rika's dance during this particular Watanagashi, when she had seen Rika Furude dance this dance hundreds of times before, and seen the dance itself preformed thousands upon thousands of times by her predecessors. True, they were free of fate this time, but this was a particular happiness that seemed to stand out from the joy Rika had seen shining in Hanyuu's face all throughout the festival.

Hanyuu's answer would stay with her for years.

_Of the thousands of offerings that I watched enthroned upon that altar…the one I loved the most was the one I watched from the crowd._


	31. Day 1: Last Person You Talked To (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Higurashi Month 2019, because it has become one of my lowkey life goals to keep perpetuating this until it becomes a proper tradition for all three-and-a-half people in this graveyard of a fandom. And then keep doing it anyways, because tradition.
> 
> 1\. Last Person You Talked To  
> 2\. Handle With Care  
> 3\. Swinging & Sliding  
> 4\. Fireworks  
> 5\. Failure  
> 6\. Tear-Jerker  
> 7\. Memory Lane  
> 8\. Clear and Transparent  
> 9\. Darkness  
> 10\. Photograph  
> 11\. Where That Place Used to Be  
> 12\. Whispers  
> 13\. Secret Message  
> 14\. Country Mouse  
> 15\. Mystical Creatures  
> 16\. Black and Blue  
> 17\. All Saints  
> 18\. It’s a Sign  
> 19\. Carnival  
> 20\. Shaping Up  
> 21\. Left Out  
> 22\. Set it Free  
> 23\. Mind & Body  
> 24\. Sunrise/Sunset  
> 25\. Dollhouse  
> 26\. Hero  
> 27\. A Day in the Life  
> 28\. Heat  
> 29\. Spellbinding  
> 30\. Silly Sports

Mion looked at the words scrawled on her arm and wondered. They had been there ever since before she could remember, but they looked...wrong.

_(Little does she know, Rika thinks as she catches Mion wordlessly staring at the words on her arm, that the words change in nearly every fragment.)_

Stop...stop! STOP!

_(In those worlds, Mion is stronger, yet more brittle, always expecting an attack against her and her soulmate, little dreaming that those words are screamed at her in the grips of madness, before Keiichi takes his bat in hand, and...)_

No matter what happens, my image of Mion won't change.

_(Mion is afraid in those worlds, afraid of what she has done, what she may do, and well she should be afraid, for they are what she hears faintly from the innermost depths of the Sonozaki torture chamber as she waits for the end of her sister's madness, alone and barely-clad, within a dirt-floored cell.)_

See ya, Mion!

 _(She waits in terror for a mundane end to something magical, or a flippant betrayal, but hears it so many times, that the day Keiichi goes to make certain of his bloody crime and check the burial place of Teppei's body, Mion does not register, and only remembers when she is choking on death in the classroom that had once been her kingdom, betrayed by people she knows not for reasons she cannot comprehend.)_

_(There are times when Mion has no writing at all, and she is empty, as all Hinamizawa is empty. Rika loathes those pale, grey worlds, worlds in which Mion never encounters her soulmate at all, because Keiichi Maebara does not come and the Hinamizawa Club is left desolate, a missing piece of their puzzle so critical that the rest just fall away without its support, disarrayed and scattered.)_

No! Just a little further, we can do this!

 _(Mion dreads the desperation, for well she should, because that one time when Rena is the only survivor, when their world doesn't end in flame and a frantic_ No, please! RENA! _their world instead ends in gas and choking lungs and dragging themselves away, inch by inch, until they succumb, and Keiichi's desperate, dying face is the last thing she sees as she slides bonelessly to the floor and he tries to hold her up, drag her along, even as he falls, too. Those are the last words in worlds where the Great Hinamizawa Disaster happens, too.)_

Sorry, but after my tough talk...looks like I'm the first out.

_(Rika feared those words as Mion never had, in that world where everything seemed to go right, until it didn't, and Keiichi was left strewn over the forest floor like a broken rag doll, a bullet in his chest and blood leaking from his mouth. That one hurts, as it has never hurt before.)_

_(The last words, the last world, Mion kept hidden, to herself, and Rika didn't mind, for after the victory in June 1983, it was no longer any of Rika's business what her friends' soulmarks were. She never had to use them to predict the outcome of a world again, to check which and who would be killers and killed. Those days were behind her.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, one of my favorite Soulmate AUs is the one where you have words from your soulmate written on your wrist, except that instead of being the first words you hear from them, they're the last words, so you don't know what you have until they're dead.


	32. Day 2: Handle With Care (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still mildly irked they didn't go into so much detail about Rena's deep-seated mental scarring in the anime as they did in the manga, but hey, there was an obvious reason to condense and they did great with what they put in.

Rena tries to brand the words into her mind.

_Rena Ryugu is a happy girl._

_She is happy._

_She **is** happy._

Rena repeats it late at night, her futon pressed against the corner of her room with a large, old box of her treasures at the foot of it, so she has only one open side to face, that she faces every night, because of the lingering fear that Oyashiro-same will loom over her bedside once more.

One the bad nights, Rena doesn't sleep, and doesn't look away, from the empty spot that had once held a presence, just beside her pillow in the open air.

_Rena Ryugu is a happy girl._

_She is happy._

_She **is** happy._

She tries to scar that into her thoughts, cut each and every separate character into the grey matter of her brain so they stand out in bold, bloody words.

_Rena Ryugu is a happy girl._

_She is happy._

_She **is** happy._

Because she has so much to be happy for. She has her friends, and the treasures from the junkyard, and the halcyon days that never, ever seem to end, one blissful summer day after the next, all pattering after each other like the rain from the thunderheads that roll over the mountains. The days of happiness that extend on forever, like the shining light of the sun that stretches on for longer each day, melting everything into a golden haze of joy.

She has nothing to be sad about. Her mother is gone, and the "i" in her name and all the ickyness that came with it. She is Hinamizawa, and Oyashiro-same has taken the filthy maggots in her blood away, because she was sorry, oh god, was she sorry, and she was forgiven and everything was all right now, and it would be all right forever, just as long as she was good and repeated her mantra to herself.

_Rena Ryugu is a happy girl._

_She is happy._

_She **is** happy._

She repeats it, every night upon sleeping and every morning upon awakening, like a prayer, which it is, in her own way. She repeats it over and over again, every day, until she starts to forget.

And then the junkyard rings with the screams of Rina Mamiya in the golden light of the halcyon day, and Rena's treasures are rained with blood.


	33. Day 3: Swinging and Sliding (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Keiichi is cosplaying as Battler from _Umineko_. Yes, Shion sees your gender roles and spits on them. Also, I have no notion of how Japanese movie theaters worked in the 1980s, but for the purposes of this fic we'll say that they replayed like one American blockbuster on a constant loop because of lingering effects of our whole occupation thing after WWII, and that it's a twenty-year old movie replaying now because it takes a while for things to percolate across the Pacific. Also, the 1961 _West Side Story_ is fuckin' amazing.

It was not exactly the most...authentic of dance halls.

Keiichi snorted under his breath, fiddling with his black clip-on tie.

Who was he kidding, this was nowhere near realistic.

Not that there was _anything_ even remotely wrong with that. The lights Rena had strung over the crossbeams and metal H-bars sticking out from the heaps of trash –most of them recycled lamps clipped or otherwise tied onto a thick metal cable that had probably once been inside the motor of the discarded crane– surrounding the cleared-out patch of ground lent a certain aesthetic air to the impromptu dance floor, a sort of unique flare that was integral to the Hinamizawa Club spirit. There was a tangible energy in the air, a crackling sort of excitement born from plans made outside adult influence and executed with competence and even appreciable beauty. It was a flushed, tingling sense of an adrenaline-high made tangible in the misty yellow light falling across scrap heaps that may as well have been placed and arranged there by an artist. This was a place of freedom, of glaring artificial lights against the velvet black of a Hinamizawa summer night, of the scent of rusting iron and fun, and the very quaintness itself of their surroundings gave an electric lick of energy to his veins.

"Wow, Rena, you've really outdone yourself." Shion commented, and Keiichi made sure to audibly roll his eyes and groan as he looked over to the girls. Mion's grandma had taken her closer to civilization than most of them usually got to be, here in Hinamizawa, and in between meetings with her family or whatever Mion had gotten the opportunity to sneak out to a cinema and watch some American movie called _West Side Story_. She had been immediately taken with it: so taken, in fact, that she bootlegged a copy, powered up the Sonozaki television set upon her return, and dragged the entire club to her mansion to watch it.

Keiichi, who had not grown up in the howling provincial wilderness like the rest of them, was not seeing anything new, but the others were all similarly enraptured, and within the week, Mion had announced her positive intentions to hold a similar dance with their club, which was met with grand at approval, and plans had moved forward to host it in the junkyard and dress in period-appropriate clothes.

For Keiichi and Satoshi, that simply met a facsimile of the colorful tuxedos worn in the film. Keiichi had an off-white, quasi-lemon-colored suit jacket with matching pants, with one of his dad's red button-up shirts layered underneath, along with a dark vest and black clip-on tie acquired from the club's cosplay locker. Satoshi, for his part, simply had a grey suit jacket, black shirt, and white tie along with his usual black school slacks.

Shion, Keiichi strongly suspected, had stolen her outfit from her intimidating butler Kasai. Likely his childhood closet, as the white shirt, black tie and jacket, and sharp-cut fedora fit her perfectly...a little _too_ perfectly, to be honest. Keiichi expected at any moment for her to start puffing on a cigar or pull a Glock from the pocket of her slacks.

Mion, of course, had gotten _far_ too into this. She was wearing a near-exact replica of Anita's dress from the school dance, except a bottle-green instead of soft-lavender, and tapping her foot eagerly as she waited to begin. Rena was nearly as enthusiastic, with her blue poodle-skirt and slightly mismatched grey shoulder-padded jacket, eyes shining with excitement. Rika, Hanyuu, and Satoko, of course, had limited opportunities to get creative, as their outfits in the club locker were less versatile and the other club members had fewer things lying about in their sizes. But they had given it a good try anyways: Rika had pinned up her hair in a messy bun and strung a gaudy plastic necklace of red beads around her neck, and her spare teal sundress had had a few lace ruffles sewn in around the chest and hems, courtesy of a beneficent Rena. Satoko had raided the bathrooms of several of her friends and emerged with a fluffed-up, bouffant travesty of a punch perm, as well as false earrings with dangling feathers, and had filched one of her tamer maid dresses from Irie in the dead of night, dying and altering it so it was an eye-smarting shade of red and less heavily ruffled.

Hanyuu had, very firmly, refused any such notions, and as such the entire club had pitched in to stuff her into another hastily-altered maid dress, this one peach-colored with white trim, and bedeck her with gaudy plastic jewelry and torturous hairstyling, which had eventually terminated in a messy bun. Rika herself, with a satanical leer, had administered the final slathering of obnoxiously bright crimson lipstick to her cousin to finish out the makeover.

And now they were, theoretically, ready. The small space they had cleared for their dance was set, so hopefully no one would trip over a rusty soup can mid-step (Keiichi was not making any bets) and the lights were up, the boombox ready in a secluded nook with all the other club members as Keiichi eyed the packed earth "dance floor" with misgiving.

"Alright, everyone!" Mion grinned, caked in no small amount of tacky lipstick herself, gesturing forwards dramatically as the other club members hastened to take their places. "Let's _mambo!_ " 

She hit the _Play_ button on the boombox with the heel of her foot and leaped forward, grabbing Keiichi by the wrists and spinning him into the dance as the brassy, metallic trumpeting of a blues saxophone filled the humid summer air, quickly joined by the beat of drums and the thrum of a guitar.

_"Get out from that kitchen, and rattle those pots and pans, get out from that kitchen, and rattle those pots and pans,"_

The words were in English and therefore halfway incomprehensible, but the beat still carried them over and swept Keiichi into the colorful, pulsing electric beat of the dance, a grin spreading traitorously across his face as he and Mion swung each other around and minced their steps in an approximate facsimile of the dances they had seen in the film.

_"Well, roll my breakfast, 'cause I'm a hungry man~"_

Her bottle-green dress whipped out around her like the fan of a flower as Mion spun, laughing giddily, her hand twined in his as she twirled like a cartoon princess, and Keiichi's heart swooped as he recognized a moment he would remember forever, a moment that melted seamlessly into the next part of the dance as she spun around him and he spun around her, the two twisting together as he palmed the small of her back and they swooped together into a low bend, laughing in unison with the pure joy of the moment and the adrenaline coursing through them both like a surge of electricity.

_"I said, shake, rattle, and roll! I said, shake, rattle, and roll!"_

"Change partners!" Mion wheezed breathlessly to the group as he brought her upright, teal eyes sparkling and gleaming with laughter, and Keiichi grinned at her as he swung her off and blindly reached for his next partner, finding Rena's small palm slip into his own as he turned to face her and saw her eyes shining with the same excited joy.

_"I said, shake, rattle, and roll! I said, shake, rattle, and roll! Well, you'll never do nothing to save your doggone soul~"_

He and Rena dropped their hands and minced, kicking up their heels, laughing and giggling unselfconsciously at each other's attempt at mimicking the American dances, neither any less wrong than the other, and Keiichi certainly knew _he_ was nowhere near correct.

_"Wearing those dresses, you hair done up so nice,"_

The pair of them skipped around each other like a pair of goats just as the others did, grinning, caught up in the music as Keiichi forgot to drop his pretensions of dislike and just cut loose, laughing with Rena and feeling the heated flush of fun and exertion creep over his cheeks the longer they danced.

_"Wearing those dresses, you hair done up so nice,"_

Keiichi and Rena began to challenge each other, trying to see who could create the more ridiculously intricate foot-clicking routine and who could match the other's and add to it better, and Keiichi grinned breathlessly into Rena's face, forgetting the dated, ostentatious costumes they both wore, forgetting his exertions, only conscious of the warm light glowing outside their little ring of dancers, the music, and the matching high flush of excitement on Rena's cheeks.

_"You look so warm, but your heart is cold as ice~"_

"Change!" Mion laughed above the music from behind him, and Keiichi turned and did not pause as he accepted Satoshi from Shion, only grinning at the equally-giddy blond as they both laughed at their so-called misfortune and swung into the dance again without pause.

_"I said, shake, rattle, and roll! I said, shake, rattle, and roll!"_

He caught a glimpse of Rika and Satoko from the corner of his eye, the two having long since given themselves over to the music and giggling childishly together as they danced in their over-the-top outfits, Rika's beads bouncing on her tiny chest as Satoko's feathers swung and fluttered with every movement of her head.

_"I said, shake, rattle, and roll! I said, shake, rattle, and roll!"_

For a former invalid, Satoshi wasn't that bad on his feet, and the two spun and tapped to the music almost in unison as they whirled through and around the other dancers, the entire club laughing the pure, clean laughter of innocent fun as the makeshift lights gleamed brightly around them on the trash heaps.

_"Well, you'll never do nothing, to save your doggone soul~"_

Satoshi and Keiichi grabbed each other's wrists and spun, using centrifugal force almost as a challenge to each other, to keep their grip and not be wrested away, and Keiichi found himself grinning and chuckling harder than he had in months as the yellow gleam of the lanterns spun and blurred around him, the music sinking down into a pulsing interlude of bars and sound.

_"Go! Go! Go!"_

"Change!" Mion cried again, exuberance vibrating in her every syllable, and the two boys let go of each other, stumbling a little at the sudden lack of support, and whirled to find new partners. Keiichi seized upon Hanyuu, who squeaked in breathless glee as he grabbed her wrists and spun her around as he did with Satoshi, messy bun already halfway undone and eyes shining as if, despite her protests, she was having the time of her life.

_"Go! Go!"_

He had to be more careful with Hanyuu as a dance partner, not to whirl her into the air or step on her tiny feet, nor crowd her too much and drag her behind him with his longer stride, but it was just as fun to twirl with her in place like she was a princess and he the prince, dip her to the swings in the music, and laugh as Hanyuu stubbornly attempted to return the treatment.

_"I'm like a one-eyed cat, peeping in a sea food store,"_

"Hauhau, no fair! Keiichi, I should be able to swing you too!" the lilac-haired girl wailed petulantly, waving her arms and pouting at him fiercely. Keiichi made sure to roll his eyes as obviously as he could before crouching and bending backwards, arching his spine as much as he could while still balancing upright, even freeing one hand to support himself in the dirt as he assumed the pose he would, had Hanyuu the reach to dip him in her turn, lifting up one arm. Her eyes sparkled with joy, and she grinned as she grabbed his offered wrist in both her small hands and hauled, pulling him upright again.

_"I'm like a one-eyed cat, peeping in a sea food store,"_

They spun around each other quickly, Keiichi making sure to mind his steps, his cheeks beginning to ache from the sheer size of the grin he had been wearing for the past several minutes, absorbing the jazzy beat of music from the old boombox like desert sand as he seamlessly transmuted it into the Hinamizawa Club's own, unique, interpretation on the American swing steps.

_"I can look at you, 'til you don't love me no more."_

"Change!" Mion giggled, and Keiichi spun again to accept Shion's hand, yelping as she immediately grinned and took the opportunity to avenge Hanyuu, cupping his back as she swooped like an eagle, forcing him into an exaggerated form of the princess-like dip he had preformed on Mion and Hanyuu earlier, and acted out for the latter.

_"I believe you're doing me wrong, and now I know,"_

Shion pulled him back upright as he grinned at her in threat of future vengeance of his own, feeling now as if they were all expressing their emotions through an increase or subtle change in the joy they partook of, never lessening, the stretch of his giddy, flushed smile now permanently screwed onto his face, and that of all his other friends.

_"I believe you're doing me wrong, and now I know,"_

The two of them whirled and danced together, the pace getting more frenetic now, the dampness of heated sweat cooling in the roots of his hair, face flushed, heart pounding faster than ever as the bright lights of the trash yard gleamed around him and the others, crickets and cicadas and other irrelevant night creatures making a faint, vague, constant song of their own around the edges of his hearing, everything caught up in the music blaring from the rattling speakers as Shion laughed and doffed her fedora, scrunching it back down on his head in a way as playful as it was patronizing.

_"The more I work, the faster my money goes~"_

Faster now, even faster, the emotions and the dance and the energy spiraling upwards into a tighter and tight spiral, caught up in the sound that did not rise or quicken but they knew must end, even as they, caught up in the timeless beat like a string of yellow bubbles dancing upon the surface of a pulsing red sea, did not want it to end, not ever, wanted to keep dancing and _enjoying_ for all the rest of time, like mortals caught in the net of a yōkai troupe.

"Change!" Mion cried for the last time, and Keiichi met Rika's hands as they wound themselves into the final strand of the dance's thread.

_"I said, shake, rattle, and roll! I said, shake, rattle, and roll!"_

He would find mosquito bites on his neck later, attracted, no doubt, by the damp gleam of sweat and the scent it released to the hungry bloodsuckers, and there would be a bruise on his knee from where he went home with the others and tripped over a branch, but Keiichi wouldn't trade those marks for the world, for they, in their own way, solidified the memory into something eternal and yet human, something he could cup in his soul forever and savor, the remembrance of him and his greatest friends dancing with wild, clumsy, pure childish abandon to American blues in the Hinamizawa trash heap, late at night, with only fireflies and lamplight for company.

_"I said, shake, rattle, and roll! I said, shake, rattle, and roll!"_

Keiichi licked his dry lips without a thought, still grinning as Rika beamed up into his face, eyes shining like stars, hoop-earrings that they had glued onto her ears with the school glue swinging as he spun her and they lurched and minced together, tapping their heels and kicking up their feet with all the careless exuberance of children who knew nothing of the steps they were imitating.

_"Well, you'll never do nothing, to save your doggone soul~"_

It was a special night, within a host of many such special nights, and they formed the jewels of his childhood.

_"Shake, rattle, and roll!"_


	34. Day 4: Fireworks (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the club would've tried making explosions at some point, don't at me.

It was an entirely sound, logical, thoroughly-planned and well-thought-out proposal, that was offered by Satoko, which meant that what Keiichi _should_ have done was take to the hills, screaming, and run as fast and as far as he could.

Even out of context, it still sounded bad.

"Children our age" and "explosive devices" and "making" were not concepts that should have been strung together, ever, at any point, within general radius of the Hinamizawa Club.

It was a good idea, Mion had agreed musingly, since the use of flares could be so vital to their plans, should Tokyo send some more bastards after them. Having a home-grown supply meant they could cache supplies and even, in a pinch, color-code their rockets.

Rena, Keiichi darkly suspected, had agreed just because she liked the idea of the colored raw materials Satoko had so generously demonstrated they would need to use. Gunpowder and sulfur and saltpeter and different colors of tissue paper and cardboard and the very pressing issue of _just where the hell she had acquired that stuff_ , because Keiichi was _pretty certain_ ordering those chemicals in this quantity got you put on some kind of list. Not to mention it was also probably regulated strictly to the mail-order of _adults_.

Rika, Shion, and Satoshi automatically agreed to anything that Satoko put forth, the _bastards_.

It was thus left to him and Hanyuu to attempt to instill order and common sense within the rowdy teens and small children that comprised this tiny local chapter of hellions, and Hanyuu, to his woe, was not good at asserting herself over the nearly-unanimous voting of the rest of the club.

So Keiichi did what he did best.

He protested loudly, continuously, and eloquently, at the top of his lungs. He protested on the way up the mountain (because thank god at least Mion had the common sense not to mix explosives in a domestic area), he protested as they laid out their tools, he protested as they mixed the chemicals and measured them out, and he damn well protested when the matches and Bic lighter Shion had swiped from her butler were brought out and the fuse rolled and placed. He _would_ have protested at the ensuing, enormous explosion, but he and the others had to save oxygen and lung space for running as fast as they could away from the ensuing miniature landslide they had created, and insult upon injury, _he_ had to piggyback the shorter-legged Satoko, author of all this chaos, as she cackled in his ear all the way down.

 _Eventually_ , he was sure, they would get it right, but until then, Keiichi was certain that there would be more explosions in his future.


	35. Day 5, Failure (2019)

It hurts.

Hanyuu had thought that she was beyond human hurt, beyond the emotions she felt when children of men were sacrificed on her altars, for humans had evolved and no longer treated Oyashiro-sama with the cabbalistic reverence that had so offended her.

But Hanyuu trembles as she feels an urge she has long forgotten and suppressed; the need to fly at the faces of these humans and rake them with her blunt little nails. To _attack_ these children of man.

Because that is _Keiichi_ they're dragging carelessly over the forest floor, Keiichi Maebara, Hinamizawa's Magician of the Mouth.

But his periwinkle eyes are unseeing and dull, and his inspirational mouth hangs open limply, uncaring and unfeeling as dirt and forest litter is smeared across his face and open lips. They don't even bother to lift him up –just drag him by an arm. Like he's trash. Like he's _dirt_.

They reach the road and he's flung into the dust by Rika like a rag doll; limp, motionless, _broken_. His eyes stare out into the world as the Yamainu go back for the next corpse; they're still shining with the hope that his friends will get away, _had_ gotten away, as he lay there and bled slowly to death.

Hanyuu thought Rika had inured her to those who died too young, but the tranquil gleam in Keiichi's eyes proved her wrong. He should have lived. He _should_ have _lived_. He was only _sixteen_ , a boy, a _child_ : he should be worrying about girls (Mion, Mion, how could your bravery not be enough?) about school, about sports and his angsty relationship with his parents.

Keiichi shouldn't have been a corpse with a bullet in his chest and too-hopeful eyes, tossed carelessly into the dirt road a mile away from his home.

Her edges whip and writhe with the depths of her emotion; Hanyuu is little more than a ghost now, as she walks through Hinamizawa, an eddy of mist held together by memories and pain, and her form shudders and tears apart even as she knits back together, clenching and unclenching her small pale fists as nails that are no longer there dig into flesh that may as well never have been.

Oh, she wants to use her power, wants to rend and tear and smash and _hurt_ , emotions foreign to Hanyuu's heart and centered too deeply in the blood and pain built on her altars that she _loathes_ , she hates so much, but if anyone's heart was to be torn open and laid still-beating at her feet, Hanyuu would give more than the flesh of her body to see Takano splayed bloody and disarrayed over her shrine, the thick threads of her intestines spooled out around the slick and shining cavity of her abdomen like a tangle of red-black yarn, like she now knows Takano has flayed Rika on the altar she has tended for centuries of lifetimes.

Oh, it is not _fair_ , but Hanyuu knows what is fair and what is not, and this world, the world of man, has not and never will be _fair_ , but all the same, it is _agonizing_ to see the fate Rika had struggled for so desperately be wiped away in a maelstrom of cast lead and blood, of wicked machinations and a sneer in the dark. To see Mion, being dragged towards them, a welter of holes in her proud, strong back, as she is flung in the dust beside the boy she loved (and killed for, oh, Hanyuu remembers those worlds, the worlds where jealousy woke in Mion's heart and not her twin's), limp and unmoving as a rag doll. If one squinted in the dim light of early night, lit only by the flat uncaring glare of the van's headlights, one could imagine, barely, that they were merely resting in some place of comfort, that Mion and Keiichi, sprawled so close, could easily reach out with their cold, pale limbs and entwine their fingers, that Keiichi could pull his arm over Mion and shelter her as she dreamed of on lonely nights, or Mion could roll over him and shelter Keiichi's body with the warrior's heart, the general's spirit that pulsed within her, the spirit that would have etched her into glorious history in the days of blood and swords and samurai.

Hanyuu remembers them in the gas chamber that was once a hallowed classroom, of choking on death and frantic escape and staggering and pulling Shion as she fell and desperate tears and _"C'mon, please, just a little farther, we can make it-!"_ all ending in slow deadly collapse, slumping against the floor and lockers once part of their dominion as light faded from the eyes of the last remaining club members.

Hanyuu wonders how Tanako managed to take Mion down in such a way, for Mion never once presented her back to an enemy, and never would now, not when the stakes were so high. She could look, perhaps, look into the fabric of Hinamizawa and see how Takano had waited until Mion was busy with her men before shooting again and again and again with her gun, callously, filling Mion's heart with lead and her lungs with blood, but Hanyuu _will not look._

She cannot _bear_ seeing Mion, strong Mion, ever-brave Mion, choke on death again. She does not want to see the struggle, the blood, the desperate pain ending in an agony of begrudging release.

It hurts too much.

Next is Rena, and she looks like a Christian angel as she is tossed down into the dirt beside her friends, gowned in white and with hair that shimmers like fire in the artificial gleam of the headlights. She is considerably less bloodied than Mion, only a single wound that poured blood onto her favorite gown, seeping out more and more as the shell of what was once a vibrant and youthful flame of humanity lay limp in the dust, darkening the fabric and leaving a wet red smear underneath her as the Yamainu waited, silent and cold, like the statues of gods far worse than herself.

Hanyuu is screaming as Takano reloads her gun, amber eyes glinting cruelly as she looks upon Shion, Satoko, and Rika, the last remnants of Hinamizawa's tragically strong and yet too-innocent club. But no one hears, no one ever can or ever shall hear, for the heartbroken screech of a god, even one as weak and powerless as she, is not meant for mortal ears.

Tears pour down a face that melts in and out of shadow, and Hanyuu howls her grief to a sky that would have shattered under her lament had she the power to manifest in the mortal world as Shion goes to join her sister in a single, sharp flare of gunfire and the cold _tinkle_ of a spent casing. Satoko joins them a moment later, after the beat of a cruel, arbitrary "quiz", and Rika stares up, resigned and afraid, into the eyes of her enemy, knowing the fate that awaits her even as she demands to be allowed her consciousness during the event, to stare with open eyes into her death.

And for a moment, as the ten-year-old _miko_ glares into Takano's face with tear-filled eyes, teeth gritted and locked around the gag in her mouth to stifle a scream as her organs are ripped asunder, the very stars in the sky shiver overhead, unnoticed by all, reflecting the echo of Hanyuu's screams, of the cry of grief of Oyashiro-sama.

Failure has never hurt so much.


	36. Day 6: Tear-Jerker (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very real question that has bugged me subconsciously for some time. Just what the hell does Rika plan to do when she actually grows up?!

Rika wonders, sometimes, very late at night, when she is very drunk, what she would do if she were allowed to grow up. Hinamizawa is a small, remote village, and she is the only remaining Furude left –one would think she would just be the resident shrine maiden, and content with that.

And, perhaps, Rika would have, once upon a time long ago when she had only one lifetime to live. But she has gone on for far, far too long, danced the ritual dances and swept the Saiguden and done all the other holy things far more than even her longest-lived counterparts. Rika knew more about Oyashiro-sama, had read more texts, had immersed herself more in the religious history, than any previous _miko_ or priest in the entire history of Hinamizawa and Onigafuchi combined.

She had simply lived too long.

In the hundreds of years' worth of rewinds, Rika had picked up lore, paged through the old texts, and just generally sifted through every scrap of knowledge her family and the shrine had, if only out of boredom, and sometimes in desperation. She could do the offering dances in her sleep, and once, she had even come to school drunk (Satoko was locked away with her cruel uncle, and Rika just couldn't stand the idea of coming to school like everything was _normal_ , had to numb her pain while she waited for the inevitable) and had practiced her dance with the mallet as usual –flawlessly. It was just too simple, the steps so ingrained in the memory of her body and mind that it was literally like walking: too easy by a half.

Rika can't stand the idea of doing that for the rest of her life, if she will ever get one. She endures it now, for Hanyuu if nothing else, but the thought of walking through such rituals again and again for the rest of her life is choking, stifling.

But Hinamizawa is a small, remote village, and there is no other thing for her to do. She cannot _leave_ , cannot selfishly pursue her own destiny in the cities, not just because of the fact that Hinamizawa is her home, but because Rika holds the Queen Carrier, the phenome that calms and soothes the madness lurking within her fellow villagers. If she leaves, she overturns a witch's cauldron behind her, a simmering, bubbling stew of madness that will leap out and ravage her beloved home –again.

Rika cannot let that happen.

Perhaps, she thinks as the kitchen swirls drunkenly around her, she will be a writer, and beloved by all of Japan for her tragic, heart-wrenching stories, a poet who weaves dreams and imaginations into one poignant whole, bringing tears to the eyes of any who read her works and stirring the very darkest depths of their hearts.

After all, she has plenty of experience with tragedy already.


	37. Day 7: Memory Lane (2019)

Rika remembers, a very very very very very very very long time ago, the first time she saw an animated movie. It was _Snow White and the Seven Dwarves_ , an American Disney film, and Rika remembers sitting curled up on the rug with wide eyes looking at the people with the too-small eyes and disturbingly floppy movements shift about on the screen in the hospital waiting room. She doesn't even remember what her parents had gone in for or why she was left in the waiting room, it was a singular event that only repeated itself once or twice throughout her many rewinds, but Rika remembers the awe of watching the scene with so many lovely sparkling gems on the screen.

_"We dig-dig-dig-dig in our mine the whole day though~"_

The voices were just slightly out of synch with the mouths moving, but Rika didn't care, her eyes were fixated on the beautiful sparkle of the animated gems, the way the dancing orbs seemed to take light in and throw it back in a thousand shimmering glints along their multicolored facets. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her whole short life, and would not chatter about anything else for the whole way back on the train, and to everyone she knew for the whole rest of the week.

Rika drifts through the Sea of Kakera now, less than a ghost, a wisp of memory that's stretched on for too long, too long. She watches light glint and spark off the edges of the fragments themselves, some dull, _many_ dull, too many, and some still shining with a faint white gleam, shimmering spiderwebs of possibility spun into a concentrated whole, a glistening faceted lump of _possibility_ , a world yet to be born and ultimately destined for death.

It's not usual for the young shrine maiden to wander through the void that she has found herself in, partly out of primal fear –there is no up or down or left or right, no east or west or north or south, no ground or air or surface or abyss, only the light that comes from nowhere and nothing and herself and the fragments– and partly out of simple grief. She cannot bear to see all the dulled, dim fragments, worlds gone dark after the deaths of her and the deaths of them all, of the utter destruction of Hinamizawa as she knew it.

Sometimes she wanders, touches the fragments, hopes to find in them some glimpse of past rules, an error, a catch in continuity, _something_ to provide a new clue, a new perspective, a refresh of memory that she never wanted and shouldn't have, for when is it that Keiichi beats Mion and Rena to death, and how may she prevent that? What night is it that Shion lures her and Satoko to the Sonozaki mansion, and when can she acquire the suppressant Irie made to try and calm her down?

Rika reviews these worlds and their memories, hoping to catch a fragment, just a little thread caught out of order in this enormous silk tapestry, something to help her find the way out of this maze. But she never does.

And the glinting appeal of the gems has long since worn off.


	38. Day 8: Clear and Transparent (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a diehard Keiichi/Mion shipper, this one was weird to write, but the idea got stuck in my head nonetheless. And besides, in the interests of fairness, I don't feel its proper to force my ship exclusively on the readers of this fic. Bless Keiichi for being as dumb as a bag of hammers, and thus making every ship interpretation possible, 'cause _he's_ sure as hell not going to notice the difference in how the girls are treating him.

Keiichi eyed the clear, glistening water with misgiving. Rena, of course, was already ankle-deep in the rushing stream that flowed through Hinamizawa, and looking at him expectantly. Even the school swimsuit she wore did not distract him from the obvious threat of the water she stood in.

The brunet swallowed hard, shifting from bare foot to bare foot.

It was bad enough to admit that he didn't know how to swim, at all. And it wasn't _weird_ , no matter what Rena insisted –he'd just never had the opportunity or reason to learn, what with living in the city and mostly focusing on his grades. But then Mion had gleefully announced two days ago that they were going to the waterpark in Okinomiya for some club activities (and to hang out), and unless he wanted to risk the shame, and in all likelihood punishment games, for merely standing awkwardly in the shallows or on the deck for the duration of their visit, Keiichi needed to learn to swim _now_.

So with a reason given, he had to make an opportunity, and it was with a cringing sort of deference that he had pulled Rena aside on their walk home and mumbled that she needed to teach him how to swim.

_Secretly._

There was a reason he'd asked Rena instead of Mion, or Shion, or any of the others, really: Keiichi knew the humiliation that would be heaped upon him, should the mint-haired club leader discover his weakness. Rena was understanding. She could teach him, and she could keep her mouth shut about it afterwards…or so he hoped.

"Keiichi-kun, you won't be able to learn to swim if you don't even get in the water." Rena pointed out with grim logic, smiling at him playfully. He scowled and reluctantly padded forward into the water, feeling it lap around his bare ankles and wash away the dust of the rocky beach. It felt nice. He could smell all the tiny green and growing things in the water, along with the scent of wet, sun-warmed stones. A few ribbonlike flickers of silver fish swarmed about his feet, then retreated just as swiftly as he moved again.

"So, Keiichi-kun, what is it you don't like about swimming?" Rena asked, tucking a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear as she sloshed over, blinking at him with benevolent curiosity. Keiichi flushed and averted his eyes from her swimsuit.

"Its not so much I'm _scared_ …" he mumbled uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head. "It's more like I don't know what to do with it and don't trust it on that account."

Rena rolled her bared shoulders in a causal shrug. "Oh, well then, there's no reason for you to be worried. We can just get you used to the water, and then you won't have to be concerned about it at all!"

She beamed at him, and Keiichi yelped as she grabbed his wrist and pulled him over into a sitting position with a shriek and a splash of water.

"You know, if I wanted to be yanked around, I'd have asked Mion to teach me…" he said grouchily as he shifted a knee so that it wasn't pressed so hard against the rocks, shaking his head as droplets of water were flung everywhere from his tousled hair. Rena flushed and dropped her eyes.

"Sorry, Keiichi-kun…I thought if it was sudden, you wouldn't have time to get antsy about it."

"Eh, I'm fine." he hummed with a shrug, seeing the puppy-like droop of her body and bright blue eyes. "It's just like a bath, to be honest."

Rena's eyes sparkled as she perked up again, brightening at his reassurance. "Yeah! Its just like a bath! That's what I wanted to teach you, Keiichi-kun! Now swimming should be easy! Just follow me out into the deeper parts!"

She shuffled backwards in the water, and with a gulp, Keiichi followed her, carefully shifting over the polished stones of the streambed on his knees, and occasionally his hands, for the slick portions of flat rocks covered with algae. The water crept up higher around his body, until it touched his ribcage, and Rena, who was crouching, was immersed up to her neck.

"There now, Keiichi-kun!" Rena said brightly. "Try to paddle around a little, and if you feel uncomfortable or anything, you can just put your feet down!"

Experimentally, Keiichi put his hands palm-down on the stones and swung out his legs, letting the slower flow of the shallower current tug at his body as the water crept up to his own neck. It didn't seem to be anything he couldn't actively handle, and he swished his legs a little, trying to mimic the things he had seen in movies and been told about in books. It took a little while, but he slowly got the hang of pushing against the current to support himself, and of creating little eddies and currents of his own with his powerful young legs to keep himself afloat as he experimentally eased up on his arms, carrying his own weight by kicking and by floating.

A near-dunking soon had Rena showing him how to hold his breath and puff out his chest to float unassisted, how to keep air in his lungs and water from rushing down his nose without pinching it shut, and how to paddle with both arms and legs, face-up and face-down. They didn't have any goggles, but Rena told him he could try to keep his eyes open underwater if he felt like it, even though it wasn't very good for his eyes here and would be even worse in the chlorine-filled pool at the park.

Not to mention the only things to see here were rocks, the tiny silver fish, and Rena.

Well, Rena might be worth seeing, but it wasn't anything he couldn't see when they both surfaced for air. She looked really cute in the school swimsuit, though he kept his mind from pursuing any further down that train of thought because for one thing, it would be pathetically easy to drown him in vengeance right now, and for another, it was part of his ongoing crusade to Not Think of Club Members As Girls, At All, Ever.

Keiichi might have been an honors student, but he was also a shut-in studier, which meant his experiences with the X-chromosome-inclined were somewhat limited. But he had still seen a lot, with his former classmates and all their summer dramas, and he did _not_ want to drag that petty, hormonal nonsense into the perfect synchronicity of the Hinamizawa Club. He and his friends went together like well-oiled cogs in a machine, and Keiichi knew that if he started looking at anyone in the club In That Way, things would start to fall apart. If any of the girls liked him _except_ the one he was making goo-goo eyes at, there would be jealousy, and even if everything went perfectly and he and, say, Rena went out together as a couple with no disagreements from anyone in the club, the club would still start to fracture, because he and Rena would prioritize he-and-Rena things over club things, and in the club, lose their merciless, battle-royal mentality towards each other, the one thing that kept all the club members sharp and prevented an ignominious defeat.

So yeah. Keiichi was not looking at the swimsuit, or the person it was covering, or how well the person in the swimsuit fit the swimsuit –nope, not at all. Yup, strictly platonic looking, that was how he was doing it.

The afternoon passed a lot faster than Keiichi thought it would.

"Thanks for teaching me this, Rena." he said as the sun began to sink in the west, striking rays of gold over the rustling treetops as he rubbed himself down with a color-smudged, paint-smelling white towel. (He was going to have to put in a word with his dad about using the house towels for his work…again.)

"No problem, Keiichi-kun!" Rena chirped, shaking out her own pastel-colored towel from where it had been laying upon the dusty ground too long, and carelessly sweeping it over her shoulders like a cloak. She grinned at him as her wet hair fanned across her cheeks and the back of her neck like a lick of copper flame. "It was really fun! And now, when we go to the waterpark, Mion won't tease you as much!"

Keiichi huffed under his breath, pulling the towel down from his damp hair to lay it around his shoulders in the same manner as Rena. "Yeah, _as much_." he groaned in dismal agreement, turning to where they had left their sandals, higher up on the bank. He hitched his onto his feet, watching as Rena did the same, before they made their way up the slight, rocky incline towards the dirt path.

His back stiffened as Rena's arms stole around his wrist, cheeks flushing. "Uh- Rena, you, um-"

"Sorry, Keiichi-kun, but my shoes aren't really suited to walking on rock." Rena apologized absently, squeezing his arm a little closer to her smooth side as she wobbled slightly, the flat of her sandals slipping a bit on the polished, rounded rocks.

"Yes, that's it!" Keiichi almost shouted, face turning red. "I mean –yes, um, good, I don't mind. Thank you. Uh, for trusting me, I mean."

"No problem~!" Rena giggled, the light dancing of her bubbly voice making it _very difficult_ to keep his thoughts Strictly Platonic as they walked and she kept her hold on his arm. "We're friends, aren't we, Keiichi-kun? _Close_ friends, who trust each other implicitly."

"Y-Yeah…" Keiichi coughed, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand anxiously. "Just friends…"

* * *

An irk mark throbbed on the back of Rena's head as she waved to Keiichi-kun, though an innocently blissful smile was still pasted on her face.

The auburn-haired teen had been _sure_ that this little swimming lesson would be enough to net her a confession, or at least make her own interest in Keiichi-kun clear. Maybe she was being too subtle for him? She'd _thought_ that holding his arm all the way to her house was enough of a hint, but apparently Keiichi was even denser than she'd thought.

Well, at least this way there was no chance of him finding out that she had suggested the waterpark excursion to Mion.


	39. Day 9: Darkness (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewriting Poe's _The Raven_ is surprisingly hard, if you want it to still rhyme.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, smug and leery,  
Over many a wicked and sneaky plan of trapping floors—  
While I cackled, thus distracted, suddenly there came a tapping,  
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my window clear.  
"'Tis some cicada," I muttered, "tapping at my window clear—  
Only this and nothing drear."

Ah, distinctly I recall it was in the midsummer's hall;  
And each separate firefly's ball wrought its ghost upon the mochi.  
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow  
From my plots surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Satoshi—  
For the brave and feckless brothers whom the angels name Satoshi—  
Nameless _here_ for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of our purple curtain  
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;  
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating  
"'Tis some cicada entreating entrance at my window clear—  
Or an errant bird entreating entrance at my window clear;—  
This it is and not to fear."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,  
"Listen," said I, "you animal, there is nothing for you here;  
But two young girls napping, and so cease your annoying rapping,  
For my plans distract at your constant tapping, tapping at my window clear,  
So shoo and you bug or bird you"—here I parted the rustling curtain;—  
Darkness there, all uncertain.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,  
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;  
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,  
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Satoshi?"  
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Satoshi!"—  
Merely this and nothing answered me.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,  
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.  
"Surely," said I, "surely that is someone in the kitchen cabinets;  
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—  
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—  
'Tis a mouse and nothing more!"

Over there I stalked my self, and, on top of the old yellowed shelf,  
There was sat a stately goddess of the saintly days of yore;  
Not the least obeisance made she; not a minute stopped or stayed she;  
But, with mien of guilty young lady, perched above the cabinet door—  
Perched nearby the cookie jar just above the cabinet door—  
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this strange picture piquing my small fancy into shrieking,  
By the guiltily-caught decorum of the countenance she wore,  
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure a craven,  
Sneaky coward and old shrine maiden thieving from the cookie store—  
Trying in the dead of night to steal the cookies that your cousin bore!"  
Quoth the Furude "Hauhauhau."

Much I marveled this brazen theft to happen so very plainly,  
Though her answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;  
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being  
Ever yet was blessed with seeing girl above their cabinet door—  
Bird or beast upon the scarred counter above their cabinet door,  
With such an excuse as "Hauhauhau."

But the maiden, sitting lonely on the off-white counter, spoke only  
That one sound, as if her soul in that sound she did outpour.  
Nothing farther then she uttered—not a finger then she fluttered—  
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before—  
On the morrow _she_ will leave me, as Satoshi has flown before."  
Then Hanyuu said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,  
"Doubtless," said I, "what she utters is a distraction from the cookie store  
Caught in the unhappy act of thieving from Rika in the night  
For she explicitly forbade eating those cookies for fear of her blight—  
Till the dirges of our Hope have been put all to flight  
So I ignore your—'nevermore'."

But the maiden still trying to beguile me into smiling,  
Despite the velvet cushion I flung upon her form, and counter and door;  
Then, upon the linoleum sinking, I betook myself to linking  
Plot unto plot, thinking what this ominous girl of yore—  
What this old, ungainly, trembling, fretful, and ominous girl of yore  
Meant in crying "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing  
To the girl whose timid eyes now pleaded into my bosom's core;  
This and more I sat divining, with my form at ease reclining  
On the linoleum kitchen lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,  
But whose linoleum kitchen lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,  
He shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from Rika's stinky old censer  
Kept by her in the Furude shrine forbidden to all, but especially to me  
"Hanyuu," I cried, "Oyashiro-sama hath lent thee—for that message he hath sent thee  
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Satoshi;  
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Satoshi!"  
Quoth the Furude "Hauhauhau."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if girl or devil!—  
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here indoors,  
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—  
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, tell me now—  
Is there— _is_ there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, tell me now!"  
Quoth the Furude "Hauhauhau."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if girl or devil!  
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that god we both adore—  
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant joy,  
It shall clasp a sainted boy whom the angels name Satoshi—  
Clasp a shy and feckless brother whom the angels name Satoshi."  
Quoth the Furude "Hauhauhau."

"A real sentence you must be starting, you moe freak!" I shrieked, upstarting—  
"Get thee back into thy futon and take they hand out the cookie store!  
Leave no stupid noise as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!  
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the counter above the door!  
Take thy sting from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"  
Quoth the Furude "Hauhauhau."

And Hanyuu, slightly weeping, still is sleeping, _still_ is sleeping  
Under the fluffy covers of her futon just inside our chamber door;  
While my eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,  
And the lamp-light o'er me streaming throws my shadow on the floor;  
And my soul goes in that shadow that lies floating on the floor  
By my greatest creation—the trap door!


	40. Day 10: Photograph (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked how Tomitake was portrayed in the manga version of Festival Music, it gave him some depth. Hence the added quote here that barely has anything to do with the rest of the snippet.

There is an old house in the mountains near Okinomiya. Its nestled among them like the prize jewel of a porcelain Christmas village, the land around it for miles leading inwards, like a flower folded in on itself.

The house itself is the very image of rough, rustic luxury, a provincial mansion made and tended for years and years and years, generations of modern feudalism, with the family name cut deep into a plaque on the front gate in bold characters, a signal to all whose domain it was.

Sonozaki.

The inside of the house is quiet now –the inhabitants are not home, and the silence stretches on through the main house, out across the vast grounds and the artful ponds scattered about them, right on towards a pair of thick iron doors cut into the living rock of the mountain. The hinges look as if they have been blown off and replaced, at least once. The silence stretches on and on past them, throughout the inner depths of the sanctum guarded by these doors, past an antechamber made of wood, into a room filled with torture implements, and another with a bank of wooden steps against one wall, to be used as seats for a presumed show. There are several holes and screws in the floor that show where some of the racks and tables from the implement room can be bolted down, to better serve for the performance, but they are empty now, and the stack of flat pillows to cushion the seats, piled neatly at the top right of the wooden platforms, is worn and old and undisturbed.

Farther in, deeper down, there are walls carved from the living rock, antechambers and passages and at the very back, a beehive of cells gouged into the rock and barred with iron in the front, with a dirt path winding up and up and around the lonely pockets of imprisonment, all empty now, all silent. At the back of a cell identical to the rest, on the ground level, is a deep, dark hole, and if one looks closely, one can see a railing bolted to the sheer wall, and shallow steps cut into the granite. These steps lead down into the hole, and at their bottom, though not the hole's bottom, one finds a tunnel that leads deeper into the mountains. But that tunnel is empty now, too, as is the dusty earth at the very depths of the round, gaping chasm that leads to the tunnel.

The house is full of secrets, empty secrets, family secrets, secrets of history, but there are some things that are not secret, less secret, and open to the public eye.

One such thing lies open on a futon, a leather-bound book with a half-hidden spine. The characters on it are embossed in gold, but cannot be read in the dim light and the lap of cotton fabric.

A scrapbook.

At the beginning are grainy, technicolor photos, bright, blurry smudges of color that still, albeit imperfectly, capture the images they are meant to commemorate. A group of schoolchildren, all grinning towards the camera, dirty and sweaty, exuberant and high-spirited, frozen forever in a moment of childish joy, with an arm flung here around white-clad shoulders, a hand scruffing there at mint-green hair, a grin with a single pointed tooth and another blindingly bright smile with gaps where white should be, a child still losing her baby teeth.

These same seven children are repeated throughout the book, in all seasons and all situations, with the pictures changing from the professional, to the candid, and the snapshot that develops on its own within a few moments (one is of them at a pool, and that picture is watermarked, colors around the edges turning into splotches of umbras in several spots, as if the children in the photo did not wait for it to develop before snatching it to look at) and eventually, an eighth child joins them, a thin boy with a pale smile that is no less bright for being so, and the smiles of the blonde girl and one of the green-haired twins become nothing short of radiant.

The pictures change as the book progresses, the children becoming older as the photos become clearer, colors sharper and less clumsily-saturated, more and more featuring schools, graduation, the crackling, dried stems of flowers and grass giving way to pasted-on copies of diplomas and silky tassels. The pictures become less inclusive, with fewer members, though all eight of the children still dance among the pages, here the boy with dark hair arm-in-arm with one of the twins, there the two girls with blue hair (she has all her teeth now, and her smile is blinding) and blond (she held hands with the other girl, but embraced her brother when the photo was done) laughing and saying farewell to childhood.

Older still, and older, and now there were photos of the men kneeling before women with hair the color of spring leaves before fireworks and flowers, and ink drawings of elegant circlets of gold and gems, drawings that spoke of reverent care. There were scraps of knitted pastel fabric and families that grew larger, kisses between two girls in an amber-lit pub (they don't photograph the ones at home, drunkenness and dares between childhood friends gives them only so much plausible deniability) and the eight children become eight men and women, and then more, more children in colors that mix those of their parents, the single threads of the eight unwinding to form many, countless tendrils that thread their way throughout the book, even as those eight slowly drop away from its pages, and eventually vanish altogether.

_Cameras help us keep the moments that we wish to remember forever.  
–Jiro Tomitake_


	41. Day 11: Where That Place Used to Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In other news, finally got around to watching Outbreak, and that shit fucked me up. That OVA contains trivia about the Higurashi universe that no sane person should ever know. Hinamizawa Syndrome is actually only one of roughly 200 species of the same disease? Fun! 90% of the global population is infected by these viruses? Fun! The spread and diversity of world cultures and religions corresponds almost exactly to the spread and diversity of the separate strains of the virus? Fun! Every one of these 200 strains instigates aggression in the carrier against all the other strains? Fun! After the UN banned research and weaponization of these viruses at a special council, every single last country involved went home and started secret research projects in their own territory? Fun! (One can only imagine how the Cold War went.)
> 
> I am still shook. It was some scary scary meta information, Do Not Like. Also, they just kinda ignored the very real questions of what happened to Shion and Satoshi in that mess, hence this little snippet here.

Hinamizawa is quiet. Not even the cicadas are crying anymore.

Rika kicks her small, sandaled heel against the dirt in the ground, the fluffy, silky brown dust-dirt born from thousands of decayed leaves. A tiny part of her is surprised that a brown puff of dirt particles echos after the movement her heel, and not a slow, soggy welling of blood.

People appreciate the lush growth of Hinamizawa, the rural, bucolic Japanese countryside so beautifully showcased in a vibrant menagerie of green. Its all the tourists ever talk about, though Rika charitably supposes that really, there's not much else in Hinamizawa that's of even the faintest interest for idle conversation.

The tourists fail to appreciate how well plants grow in ground soaked with blood, how healthy it is for them.

_Pop-pop-pop-pop._

The heavy silence of the summer night is abruptly broken as there's a static, sporadic burst of _pops_ in the distance. In happier times, Rika might mistake those sounds for fireworks, for celebration. But tonight, she simply hears the sound of gunfire and marvels quietly to herself that someone is still left alive to fight. She would've thought Rena and Keiichi had taken care of all that, certainly taken care of all the people with guns.

Then again, there are 2,000 citizens of Hinamizawa, and someone may have looted the corpses.

A soft, sultry breeze stirs her long midnight-blue hair as Rika walks along the dirt road, proving that the gunfire had been some distance away and the sound merely carried by the wind through the humid night air. She wonders if the others have escaped Hinamizawa yet. She hopes –no, she knows they have. It's simply inconceivable that her friends would find an obstacle they were unable to face. The rest of Hinamizawa is a seething, uncoordinated mass of hornets, flying and stinging at random: her friends have a concrete goal and iron-clad wills, and, moreover, are well-used to working in concert. They can swat the hornets away with less effort than it takes Rika to do the dance offering.

She wonders where Hanyuu has gone, if she has truly given up for the final time.

Hinamizawa is Rika's place, and it is her duty to witness this madness, the bubbling cauldron stirred up by meddling she darkly suspects is from Miyo Takano's unknown backers. A fitting revenge for thwarting their efforts to take over Tokyo, or whatever the secret organization is called.

Rika needs to witness this.

She wishes she could feel _something_ as she trails through Irie Clinic, sees the blood and the scattered bodies of defenders and patients alike. She wishes that she could feel some modicum of sympathy, of sorrow, as she looks on Irie where he's slumped against the wall. It's funny, how he has died in so many worlds (just as many as she had, Takano did not leave loose ends), but always due to sleeping pills slipped into his afternoon tea. To Rika's knowledge, his death was always peaceful, unconscious, the powerful sedatives tugging him away into hazy slumber, leaving Irie unaware as death finally stole over him.

Bright flowers of red are painted all over the front of his pristine labcoat, and even Rika's iron stomach squirms a little as she looks closer and sees the gory orchid of his mouth, shattered teeth and torn throat and a hole in the back of his head. She remembers the hot blood flecking her face as she stood behind the window above him, now shattered, and little grainy bits that were probably part of Irie's so-smart, so-caring brain. She chooses to believe that it was his own terminal symptoms surfacing that drove Irie to squeeze his eyes shut and jam that pistol inside his mouth, the gun that now lies along with his limp hand in his lap, choses to believe that this bright spark of hope and genius, who worked so hard to save so many and had that unnatural obsession with maids, did not give in so thoroughly to despair.

She wants to grieve, to miss him, to miss the kindness he showed her and how much he has helped her and Satoko. But just as she did when Irie blew his brains out before her, Rika can't seem to stir any emotions through the leaden apathy that has blanketed her mind.

She blinks slowly and turns away, continuing her slow stroll through the clinic. A quick tap on the keypad and a swipe of the card she snatched from Irie's bloody lapel gets her through the heavy metal door –they may have changed the codes, but Rika has gone through so many worlds, seen Irie tap out so many different little patterns on the keypad, that they couldn't possibly have devised one she hadn't memorized.

The door slides open, and Rika continues her slow, short-striding pace, her long curtain of hair waving softly over her back as she walks through the slightly cleaner portions of the clinic. Blood stains and smears show that bodies have been dragged away to places unknown, and Rika feels a tingle down her spine as she turns a corner, coming to a slow halt as her sandals clack against the floor.

"Mew, hello, Kasai." she says calmly in her childish voice. Something clicks behind her, and although Rika knows nothing about guns, she knows enough to recognize the sound of the components shifting inside one. "Are Shi and Satoshi alright?"

"Are you alone?"

Fleetingly, Rika thinks of the fretful presence of Hanyuu, always hanging over her shoulders. But she is gone now, and the air is strangely cold and empty.

"Mew, yes sir. Everyone else is gone…"

"Or dead." Kasai helpfully supplies the words for her when Rika trails off, deep voice professional and emotionless. "Mion-san?"

"She's with Keiichi and Rena and Satoko and Keiichi's parents. They're escaping out through the old tunnels in the Sonozaki estate."

Rika feels something cold and round press against the back of her head, cautious and slow. Wise Kasai, who was taking nothing to chance and nothing for granted, not even the apparent harmlessness of a small girl. "And you?"

"I have to stay, sir. I am the Furude _miko_ , the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama." Rika answers simply. "I need to witness this."

Kasai took the gun away, and Rika turned around to see the gleam of his sunglasses, cold and black.

"Shion-san and Hojo-san are in Hojo-san's room." the Sonozaki retainer answers gravely, not holstering the shotgun she realizes was formerly pressed against the back of her head, but letting it hang limply at his side. Rika nods in acknowledgment of this fact and goes to join them.

The backs of Shion's green eyes flicker ferally, like a cat's, like they did in the worlds where she loses faith in Satoshi's return, like they do towards the end, when there are too many corpses decorating the underground Sonozaki chambers.

They're red-rimmed too, as if she has been crying.

Shion jerks her head up as Rika enters, eyes wide and sharp and ready for an assault, slender hand darting towards the Kalashnikov leaning against the frame of Satoshi's hospital bed. She recognizes Rika, recognizes the calm of her personal guard, and relaxes again, minutely.

Rika walks past her, and sees the unconscious Satoshi, the bear, the machines all beeping calmly away. Everything is as it was, as it has always been, before the world of Hinamizawa was ripped apart. Here, perhaps, she can learn to feel again, crack the stone that has coated her heart and weep for the destruction of her home. This lack of emotion may protect her, but it stings deep to know that she had not shed a tear despite the deaths of so many she had tried to protect.

"Mew, Shi, it's good to see you two are alright." she chirps gravely as she takes a seat on the other plastic chair, on the other side of Satoshi. "I'm here to help."

Green eyes narrow, then relax, and the younger Sonozaki nods slowly, turning her head to look towards Satoshi. "We need to keep him asleep." she says, voice hoarse as if from her weeping. "I –I don't know how long the power will stay up." Tears tremble on the edges of her long lashes. "I-I don't know how to give him his medicine to _keep_ him asleep."

"I know how Irie and his people worked." Rika says. "I know where their things are kept, and what they are. If Kasai can do something to keep the power up, we can definitely keep the clinic running for Satoshi as long as we need it to."

Shion rubs her wrist over her eyes, opening them again as they brimmed with hope instead of tears. "Yes. And with all the other competitors gone, we'll have no problem getting food and water. No one will attack you, you're the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama, so you can get as much as we need, and when we're the only ones left, it won't matter anymore."

Rika smiles quietly.

Hinamizawa is no more. Onigafuchi has arisen from the depths of legend and ripped apart their peaceful country life in blood and gunfire, and she has no idea of how far the violence and chaos may spread. Perhaps it will cover all of Japan.

It doesn't matter. The name of this place is meaningless. Her friends know the way, the way marked for them in blood and tears and pain, throughout a hundred lifetimes of suffering. Hinamizawa is in their bones, and the name and nature does not matter: they will always, _always_ , find their way back.

Their home may be a burning shell of its former self, a crumbling husk, but, perhaps, now there may be something left over when the ashes blow away, something for her friends to come back to.


	42. Day 12: Whispers (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to do happy things to balance out the other times when I give into the temptation to indulge in the horror fiction that is Higurashi.

It's not easy to exchange covert information in a 16-student classroom, but Keiichi Maebara is used to making do. Not to mention, his old cram school only had three or four other students, and on the rare occasions they wanted to interact under the teacher's gaze, it was even harder to do so subtly, so by now Keiichi has _mastered_ such knowledge. The subtle-poke-with-toe-under-desk, combined with the hissed-whisper-out-of-corner-of-mouth or folded-note-pass, all without moving his head or eyes from straight ahead, the dart-eyes-downwards-and-sneaky-arm-movement-to-draw-attention-to-note-on-desk, Keiichi knew them all.

Having grown up in this classroom, the others have their own ways. Mion's up at the front a lot, as class rep, so she can get away with a quick mime behind an oblivious Chie-sensei's back before dropping her hands, contriving to look innocent, or more usually, waiting until Chie-sensei is occupied with another student and trusting to her knowledge of who struggles how much to be able to exchange a properly covert conversation in hushed undertones before Chie-sensei turns around again.

The others use that tactic a lot, too –Keiichi's even seen Rika subtly signal Hanyuu on multiple occasions, who immediately developed a mysteriously persistent lack of comprehension, despite Chie-sensei's eventual efforts, until Rika's hissed conversation with Satoko was done and she gave her flustered cousin another hand signal, which magically cleared up her understanding on the instant.

The notes and whispers are definitely more fun now than they used to be, so the stakes are comparatively higher: plans of things to do after school in the club, bold plots of victory and defeat and hissed rejoinders and challenges when Chie-sensei's back is turned, all delivered with a menacing, excited sparkle in the eyes and a toothy smirk from both sides. Complicated missions of sabotage and reconnaissance, of getting supplies and organizing their resources for another faux-bloody battle. The squirt-guns and soakers and water balloons have to come from _somewhere_ , after all.

Most of the notes are delivered in ragged, toothy edges of notebook paper, thin as a whisper and dusted with faint grime or watermarks from playing too hard and too long with schoolbags quite literally dropped by the side of the road, a far cry from the sterile, equally-flimsy paper he passed notes with back home. The messages are written in colored pencil and fat swipes of markers and as often as not have little chibi designs on the edges, especially if it's a note from Rena. (On one memorable occasion she hissed and passed him a note with, among other things, a chibified dustbin dancing merrily around the edges, which made even less sense than one would think, as it was an invitation to the suspension bridge by Satoko and Rika-chan's house to fly kites.)

And on the whole, he thinks as he looks at the inky smudges of red and blue left over from the markered notes of his friends throughout the day, that was a better thing.


	43. Day 13: Secret Message (2019)

The bracing scent of salty sea air whisked throughout the perfectly-trimmed riggings of the _Bludgeon_ , and Keiichi Maebara, that selfsame ship's proud captain, whooped in unholy glee as the wooden craft cut through the rolling ocean like a hot knife through butter. The brisk sea breeze danced among the gleaming mahogany and violet plumes of his feathered captain's hat, sending them ruffling and quivering in every direction as he inhaled and filled his lungs with that delightful scent of adventure.

"Bring her about, first mate Rena!" he bellowed from his place amongst the riggings, and heard a chipper "aye-aye" from the poop deck as his auburn-headed right hand spun the ship's wheel about, sending them scudding towards the faint smudge of greenish darkness against the horizon.

Their destination.

Keiichi and his scurvy crew were some of the most fearsome pirates to terrorize the balmy waters of the Caribbean, and they were on the hunt for gold today, a buried treasure said to have come from the very hands of a god many leagues to the east, around the cape of Africa and out towards the Orient. Since Keiichi's own parents had come from that fabled land, he reckoned he had just as good of a chance as anyone else to find and snatch up that treasure, especially with the talents of his mighty and loyal crew at his disposal.

Rena, his first mate and best friend, was an absolute demon with the cutlass, and furthermore, a skilled navigator and something of a mother hen –she ran the ship nearly as much as he did, and she kept the entire crew all in one contented unit. If someone had a scratch or a problem, they came to Rena.

Rika, the petite thief, was a past master of skullduggery and sneaking around, and her adorable, doll-like tiny figure only served to further throw off any suspicions. Keiichi had known her to steal a man almost blind, and then be crooned over in sympathy and given his last remaining farthing, her waiflike appearance was so pitifully convincing.

Hanyuu, their cabin girl, was a timid scholar, and while she wasn't much cop in a fight of any kind, she knew dusty tomes and strangely-written old scrolls like the back of her ink-smudged hand, and Keiichi was counting on her to give him the information he and the others needed to work their way to the cave on this remote island where, allegedly, this fantastic treasure was buried. The scrolls Hanyuu had found were all full of "bliss and joy everlasting" and "a treasure the richest kings would weep to possess," which made Keiichi all but rub his hands in glee as he envisioned the gigantic heap of jewels and gold and other priceless artifacts waiting for him and his crew in that cave.

"Captain!" a shrill voice interrupted his pleasant daydreams abruptly, Rika pointing ahead from her place near the bow. "Trouble up ahead!"

Blinking, Keiichi looked up at the island they were approaching, and his jaw gaped in astounded stupefaction.

There was another ship in _their_ secret harbor, in _their_ secret island, flying a pirate flag and thus undoubtedly intent on stealing _their_ treasure before Keiichi and his crew could so much as clap eyes on it.

The brunet scowled and grabbed a rope, beginning to descend down to the deck. "Full speed ahead, Rena! We won't let those bastards get away with our treasure!"

"Aye-aye, sir!" Rena cried, her blue eyes fierce as she unconsciously shifted her stance, making sure her cutlass was within easy reach.

They swooped into the cove with all the righteous fury a ship could possibly give off, and Keiichi's rage was only further increased when he saw the green hair and ridiculously outsized hat of the captain of their foes.

"Mion Sonozaki!" he cried with a voice of thunder, withdrawing his reinforced belaying pin and waving it angrily as the female captain looked up from where she was supervising the retrieval of a mid-sized iron chest by her two lieutenants, her twin Shion and the doctor Satoshi. "Avaunt and lay down my treasure, you pox-riddled wench!"

The other captain grinned mockingly and folded her arms across her bounteous, lapel-covered chest, her emerald-green cloak hanging down to her knees, all a-sparkle with gold tags and fastenings, with gold-braided shoulders. His was way better, and more tasteful. "Finders keepers, you lily-livered scut-faced coward!" she bellowed back as Satoko, the ship's saboteur, peeked over the edge of the _Demon_ 's rails and grinned upon seeing the _Bludgeon_ and all her rivals thereon.

"I'll keep what I find when I nail your gizzard to the sands, you moldy-haired prancing pestilence!" Keiichi yelled, near frothing at the mouth, and pointed his minions on as Shion and Satoshi dropped the box of what was assuredly the treasure, drawing a poison-bearing dagger and a belaying pin of his own respectively. "Attack!"

The ship beached itself with a thunderous shudder of wood and a crunch, and Keiichi leapt down onto the sands of the beach, charging forward to meet Mion's cutlass with his embossed wooden club as Rena darted for Shion and Rika rushed to engage her partner. Hanyuu squeaked and clumsily swung over onto the _Demon_ , well aware of how crucial her role was in keeping Satoko away from their precious ship.

Sparks flew and the crash and impact of steel against steel, steel against hardened and lacquered wood, echoed across the beaches of the deserted island as both crews of pirates engaged in furious battle for possession of the iron chest now innocuously laying on the salt-washed sand. Rena and Shion were well-matched, for Rena knew by experience that a single prick of the blade Shion carried would paralyze her for hour, and though her cutlass was longer, the younger Sonozaki twin cut and parried with such skill that she was hard-pressed to use her advantage. Rika was so much smaller than Satoshi, that despite her nimble ability to dodge, she was equally-hampered in trying to land a blow on him, and Hanyuu of course was barely skilled enough to keep Satoko from doing anything, and the only reason she wasn't unconscious was because Satoko was rather weak in direct combat herself, and the two young girls rolled around, undignified, on the deck of the _Demon_ , squealing and hitting at each other with their bare fists.

No, only Keiichi and Mion were dueling as equals, and even as he swung and battered his belaying pin against her cutlass's implacable defense, Keiichi felt a liquid thrill run through his veins, white-hot excitement burning as adrenaline through his veins as the two of them parried and dueled up and down the sands, panting for breath and caught up entirely in the skill of his opponent.

That is, until Hanyuu fell (thrown, most likely) from the deck of the _Demon_ , directly onto the chest they were so desperately fighting for, and tumbled off. Keiichi barely caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes, too focused on Mion, but he certainly heard her indignant squeal rising above the sounds of battle as Hanyuu scrambled back up again, saw that her impact had bounced open the lid of the chest, and discovered that-

"It's empty!"

All movement stopped, and all eyes turned to the stunned-looking young girl as she stared, jaw low, into the open chest. Without looking at each other, Keiichi and Mion disengaged their weapons and rushed over simultaneously, as the members of their crew followed quickly after. All eight pairs of eyes stared into the bottom of the chest, which was indeed, absolutely empty.

"Did someone take the treasure before we did?" Shion asked out loud in confusion, scratching her head.

"No…there's a note here, and in the sacred language the directions were written in!" Hanyuu exclaimed, and Rika swatted aside Satoko's eager hand as Hanyuu bent down to pick it up.

There was tense silence as the scholar slowly read through the note –turning red, oddly enough– before she finally cleared her throat and put it down.

"Well?" Mion asked expectantly, hand on her hip, and Hanyuu squirmed. Keiichi, knowing that this was never a good sign, groaned, and Rena sighed as she sheathed her cutlass once more.

"It, um, it says that the greatest treasure of all is the love of others, so…"

Groans sounded throughout both crews as more weapons were put away, and Mion swore as she threw her hat upon the ground.

"All this effort wasted, and for what? A smarmy peace message!" Shion grumbled as she picked up her sister's hat, both crews grumbling as they neatened themselves and headed back to their ships.

Hanyuu was left, scowling, by the treasure chest. One would think it would be easy to get two groups of thickheaded pirates to properly fall in love with each other, but alas, even for a goddess such as her, it was proving frustratingly difficult.

She sighed as she tersely folded her note and tossed it back in the chest, starting to trudge back to the ship with Keiichi's crew.

_Maybe I could ask some help from Cupid?_


	44. Day 14: Country Mouse (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is taken from the _Deltora_ series, btw. I claim no credit for it. Also, Outbreak keeps lurking in the fringes of my brain. Too many fanfic opportunities, I say, even if the OVA itself wasn't all that great compared to the rest of the series. Even before I was aware of it I still firmly bet the Hinamizawa Club against Any Apocalyptic Event Ever, and here Outbreak just had to go and barely fulfill my angst-and-whump-ridden fantasies with abysmally subpar (and sometimes just plain weird) writing, because Shion _whom?_ Satoshi existing? Come now, of course including those two in an OVA that's focused on the outbreak of severe Hinamizawa Syndrome at all, ever, even in mention, would be absolutely ridiculous. They obviously don't connect with that theme or storyline at all.
> 
> I'm salty and it's begging for a novelized rewrite is all I'm saying.

Being the heir to the vast Sonozaki estate is a very serious, sometimes fun, sometimes boring, sometimes scary occupation. For the meetings, it was usually a mixture of boredom and seriousness. Some things were fun, like learning how to boss people around, or all the treats she got. It sometimes got scary though, like when Batcha made her learn some of the Very Serious Aspects of being the Sonozaki head.

As Batcha led her by the hand to a very large, very ominous-looking door bolted right into the mountain near the main house, Mion was pretty sure that this would be one of the scarier times.

Batcha grabs the key from her kimono and unlocks the door swiftly, but she relies on the two men in dark suits to pull it shut again, and from the heavy clang, Mion figures it must be pretty heavy.

She looks up at her grandma through disarrayed green bangs.

"What is this place, Batcha?"

Her grandmother doesn't answer directly, instead shuffling over to turn on the lights. "Have you ever been inside the Furude Saiguden, child?"

"Of course not!" Mion is scandalized. That place is sacred to Oyashiro-sama, a holy building that houses all his ritual tools and implements. Only the Furudes can go in there, because others, even Sonozakis, would be defiling that sacred ground with their mere presence. The very idea that _she_ would go in there…!

"Good, good." Batcha's murmurs in her creaky old voice, sounding approving. Mion relaxes just a little. "Those tools were for more than just show, you know. Torture tools. Tools to keep stupid rule-breakers from disobeying Oyashiro-sama's laws."

Batcha moves over to a wooden door, and remembering her duties, Mion quickly scrambles over to serve as a walking aid. She ignores the queasy feeling in her gut as Batcha pushes open the next doors, descending down a set of wooden steps almost as creaky as she is.

Mion is so busy helping her grandma down that she doesn't look up at all until they've reached the bottom, and then her cry of fear echoes around the small chamber as the young heir takes a hasty step back, eyes widening.

There are torture tools _everywhere_. And there's an open space, and a bank of ledges, with cushions for people…for _watching_.

The queasy feeling moved up to her throat.

"Don't be a coward, girl." Mion squeaks as Batcha flicks her on the ear. "These can't do nothing to you. They're for using on others. Others that break the Sonozaki rules. When you take my place, you'll make use of this room as the family head, I can bet you that."

Mion gulps down the sick feeling in her throat, following tremulously as Batcha leads her onward. She pauses a moment to get two flashlights, handing one to Mion and keeping the other for herself as they hobble out through an opening in the room, to someplace that is dark and vaguely reflective in a way Mion recognized as rock walls.

It's a cave.

A big cave, like a hollowed-out beehive, with dark pockets honeycombing the walls, everything made of a reddish-brown rock. Their shoes clack against the ground as they move, and Mion's flashlight picks out a slope on the side of the cave, tracing it upwards to see that it winds around the walls, going upwards, with the black pockets, the holes in the rock, resting squarely atop it.

Mion briefly freezes, mid-step, as her flashlight glints off the edge of man-made steel. There are metal bars strung vertically across the pockets.

Batcha, however, tugs the heir along by the arm Mion has lifted up to help support her, ignoring her small whimper of distress.

"And these are the places where we keep unwelcome guests who might want to stay a while, eh?" Batcha murmurs with bitter humor, coughing raggedly. Mion's small legs pump as she strives to keep up, the old woman setting a brisk pace.

"Do we…actually use these cells, Batcha?" she asks timidly, and her grandma laughs.

"Of course we do, girl. Not often, but often enough. Sonozakis don't make a thing unless they plan to use it."

Mion gulps again.

Batcha drags are to a cell, apparently specific cell, and directs Mion's attention to the rock outside it. Mion leans forward into the glow of the flashlight, and sees a faint line of characters scratched into the rock, hidden in a crevice so one would have to be looking hard to find them.

 _"Scurry, mouse, into your house. Lift the lid, be glad you did."_ she reads aloud, uncertainly, and Batcha gives a dry, crackling little laugh, patting her on the shoulder.

"Aye, girl. That's how we find this cell in particular. It's the special one. Can you tell me why?"

Mion does not want to guess why, because she has an uncomfortable feeling that it will involve more scary things. But when Batcha asks a question, that question had to be answered.

She swung her flashlight around, frowning a little. "It's the same size as the others…and it looks the same…and it's empty…so it's a hiding place?" she thinks aloud, and Batcha pats her shoulder again.

"Close, girl, close. Let's open up this door and go inside."

In truth, that is the very last thing Mion wants to do, but Batcha has commanded her, so she goes over and stands up on her tiptoes, trembling fingers just barely managing to flip the simple bolt. She tucks her flashlight into her shirt and pulls open the gate with both hands, Batcha's right hand still clasped on her shoulder. Nervously, she led the old woman inside, wondering for a wild, frightening second if she had displeased her in some way and this was her punishment, to be locked inside forever and ever and ever until Batcha decided she was forgiven.

But that doesn't seem to be it, and Batcha directs her flashlight beam most carefully on the ground in front of them both as they shuffle and walk slowly forward. It shows only the same brownish, rust-colored rock inside that gleaming golden circle of delicate light, scrolling forwards as they move.

Then Mion's heart leaps up into her mouth as the edges of that delicate circle suddenly fall away into utter blackness, and Batcha stops her short, hand tugging firmly on her shoulder.

"Here we are." she pronounces in dry, crackly satisfaction. "The old well. We throw away things we no longer have use for here. Trash. Don't want any maggots, you see?"

Batcha's arm quavers as she extends her flashlight out over the wide hole in the ground. Mion's gasp echoes, hollow and faint and soft, around the stone as her grandma drops it, the flashlight pinwheeling like a trapped butterfly as its warm cone of light sank down, down, down, until not even a glimmer was left. Mion is almost sure she can hear the tiny, crisp _crunch_ as the casing splits and spills out the batteries, plastic face shattering as the lightbulb cracks.

"Aye, it's deep, girl, very deep. If there's anyone who ever displeases you…anything you wouldn't want the police to find, well…if they ever search, they'd never get this far. Do you understand me, girl?

Batcha's hand is like a gnarled claw, digging deep into her fragile shoulder. The pit before her yawns wide, deep, and dark, Mion's heart fluttering like the wild, wheeling dance of the yellow flashlight's beam as it plummeted downwards.

"Yes!" she blurted, wanting to take a step away, but terrified that she will overbalance both herself and the heavy weight of Batcha resting on her shoulder and tumble down, down…

"Aim your light over there, girl."

Mion gulps as she follows the slightly quivering line of Batcha's other hand, her finger pointing deep down into the hole, and to the side. Batcha's other hand unclasps from her shoulder, and the young heir took a slow, cautious step forward, heart pounding wildly as she teetered near that awful ledge and its gaping hole. She aimed her flashlight down, small hands shaking and damp with sweat, so that she fears that she'll drop it with every moment.

"Further down, girl, curse it!"

With a hasty gulp, Mion redirects her light. She blinks in surprise as she sees another hole dug out into the side of this own, and childish curiosity briefly rearing its head, takes a step to the side, watching the harsh blackness of the shadows cast by her warm yellow light shift sideways, revealing with more steps, as she forgot her fear, that it was not only a hole, but a tunnel, gouged out of the rock, with shallow grooves cut into the stone leading up to the rim where she and Batcha stood, iron bars bolted into the rock to provide handholds alongside them.

"An escape tunnel?" she guesses aloud, looking to Batcha. The old woman's eyes seem to warm infinestibly with approval, though whether it is at her guess or Mion's obvious display of curiosity, the young heir does not know.

"That it is, girl. Leads out into the mountains, into an old dry well. Good for an emergency escape, although, praise Oyashiro-sama, it has never been needed by any member of our house."

She shook her gnarled finger at Mion.

"Remember this place, child! You'll have the use of it someday, so you should know how to best wield your tools!"

"Yes, Batcha." Mion agreed promptly.

Batcha shows her more that day, but it is the tunnel she most especially remembers, now, as she and Kei-chan and Rena and Satoko and Kei-chan's parents all move swiftly through the abandoned cave, weapons and flashlights at the ready. Both she and Rena have been shot, each of them with an arm that's useless, so climbing down into that hole, with those shallow steps, is going to be an interesting exercise.

Batcha was right, she thinks with a grin as she points them to the right cell, recognizing the familiar subtle patterns of the rock wall outside it.

_Scurry, mouse, into your house.  
Lift the lid, be glad you did._

She is going to use that tunnel, someday, and that day is now.


	45. Day 15: Mystical Creatures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I can use my extensive obscure knowledge of supernatural creatures! Let's do that by mentioning absolutely none of the obscure ones, yay!

Hanyuu wonders sometimes, if her friends, her charges, her _family_ , weren't human, what types of creatures they would be. She has met many, in her centuries as a goddess, some near, some far, some of her own stamp, and others from exotic lands. It's something she thinks on sometimes, when there is nothing else to think on it do.

Satoko, of course, instantly springs to mind as a playful yōkai, a wandering spirit that is attracted to mischief as a bee is attracted to honey. She can easily imagine the young blonde bedeviling the path of some poor, arrogant traveler, until he wept for a better chance to do kindness, and strewing sunshine and good luck over the path of some kindly, well-deserving soul.

Satoshi, on the other hand, is more difficult. He is more gentle, more sensitive, and yes, more clumsy and airheaded. But his vague demeanor hides a heart of gold and a soul of utter fiery courage, who will stop at nothing to protect and cast its shield over his loved ones. Hanyuu thinks on him as an amiable lycanthrope, a shapeshifter who changes into the howling form of a powerful beast whenever danger threatens or the full moon kisses his back.

Rena is pathetically easy. Her nurturing spirit, her curiosity, her benevolence and volcanic, diamond-hard fury that, when roused, could destroy men and nations as easy as the snap of her fingers…Hanyuu has but to close her eyes before she sees a delicate, well-shaped form of glittering fins and a long, elegant tail, bright blue eyes shimmering with curiosity and auburn hair floating loose around her face, Rena cutting through the ocean's deeps with the ease and grace of a shuttle weaving through the strands of a loom, slender white hands splayed and grasping to take all her treasure's back to the mermaid's hoard. Her last name does relate to the dragon king of the underwater halls, after all, so it is not even too much of a stretch.

Mion and Shion are more difficult. Many of the _other ones_ love twins, value them, and would fain have snatched them in the cradle had this been in the old times and on another continent.

Mion, she thinks, is perhaps a dragon, not the destructive beast of the west, but the fierce, protective governor of rain, the one with the pearl of wisdom beneath her jaw and the five claws of royalty wrapped protectively around her friends, endless as the sun and as powerful as the winds.

Shion cannot be anything _but_ a kitsune –it is simply not possible. Her cleverness, her guile, her mischievous nature that melds and mixes harmoniously with Satoko's (often to Keiichi's untold woe), it is unthinkable to label her as anything else. Her love for Satoshi, too, is well within the bounds of her foxlike spirit, and Hanyuu means to somehow contrive to have inarizushi served at their wedding feast, to complete her own private joke.

Keiichi, too, is difficult to place. Were he not male, he would be easy to recreate as a siren, with his nigh-magical silver tongue, as sorcerers who usually also have such charisma are human as well and therefor not applicable for Hanyuu's arbitrary designations. She supposed he might be a tengu, though his nose is nowhere near long enough, for his skill as a warrior and his hidden wisdom.

Rika, she wonders last, is also hard to pin to an otherworldly creature. Too much knowledge in too small a skin, with a willpower and desperation that makes her purely human.

Perhaps Rika would be an angel, for her long and patient suffering at her god's whim, and Hanyuu will leave it at that.


	46. Day 16: Black and Blue (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I write these my brain goes "angst? Blood! Death! HoRrOr!? Whump?" and I'm just sat there like "Be quiet!"
> 
> I try to write wholesome fluff to balance out the times when I give into my impulses, but with mixed success, as you can see. It's either horror and gore or tooth-rotting fluff and ships with me, no middle ground whatsoever. We die like angst-thirsty bitches overcompensating for our sadistic character-based tendencies here.

Rika's friends are patchwork dolls. She wonders how no one else but herself can see it, the skitter of red thread going up Mion's white temple to sew her back together after Keiichi's bat cracked her porcelain skull, the spiderwebby lines sprawled across Rena's face from the shoddy job her doctor did in piecing her psyche back together.

Mion's back is black and blue from her time as the Sonozaki head, the invisible burden her tattoo placed upon her weighing the spritely club leader down like an anvil, like the blows rained down from the strap of a belt.

Shion has her heart out for everyone to see, a gaping black spot where it has been torn right from her chest. You can see the world behind it, right through her body, and the world you see is Satoshi Hojo, lost and dead.

Satoko is splotched all over, like a preschool doll passed from too many inky hands to too many paint-smeared fingers. The smears are washed away, but they still remain in ghostly blooms of black and blue and green, because the hands she is passed to are from aunt to uncle, and their hands are anything but kind, always raised in fists and blows.

Keiichi's stitches claw down his neck, little red seams of glue where he got pieced back together, cracks that perfectly match his hands and most especially his nails, shadows of broken bones on his arms and legs from a fall near a bridge, an umbra over his heart from where it ceased to beat, too many worlds ago in a hospital bed.

Rika's friends are patchwork dolls, and only she can see the cracks in their perfection.


	47. Day 17: All Saints (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an asexual, am I allowed to say "I'm always a slut for X"…?
> 
> I'll risk it.
> 
> I'm always a slut for Hellsing. Vampires and violence and aesthetic, fuck yeah.

The rattle of gunfire burst through the abandoned church, pews exploding and splinters flying everywhere. Black pockmarks burst into the old plaster of the chapel walls, an ominous trail of destruction resembling swiss cheese trailing in her wake as she bounced around the room. A reliquary, tucked away in an undamaged corner, held banks upon banks of tiny votive candles, their warm yellow flames flickering and swaying behind their dark red glass and shedding the only light in the rapidly-crumbling church.

Satoko Hojo grinned, baring sharp, needle-like fangs, as her feet brushed lightly against the old black support beam that grounded the roof, and she launched off with enough force to outrace a modern fighter jet, the pulse of air exploding outwards and making the candles sway and dance frantically in their holders.

Her prey, waiting for her as he stood near the altar, gun upraised, wasn't ready for her, not even close. Well, what could one expect, from a vampire weak enough to actually rely on a _gun_ for defense?

There was a _crunch_ and an inhuman shriek as Satoko's fangs clamped around cool, clammy flesh, a flat burst of sour blood trickling into her mouth, cold and dead. She swallowed regardless –waste not, want not.

Her prey began to dissolve, and Satoko quickly opened her jaws, watching the male –dressed in a grimy hoodie and jeans– fall back and disintegrate into ash, machine gun slipping from his collapsing fingers as gritty grey ash spilled across the ground. A few sparks lit off where his unholy ashes dared to contact the blessed altar, and Satoko smirked. The fool had been quite, quite desperate, to take shelter in the House of God, which hated them both, though she was strong enough to walk there more or less with impunity.

Satoko bowed, flourishing an ironic salute to the large, carven crucifix dangling from the ceiling, before she turned on her booted heel and began to walk out, the long tail of her black cloak swaying behind her small athletic back.

The gibbous moon glowed a silvery white in the great open space of the sky as she flung the doors open, letting in the cool, soothing scent of the night to the ruined church, and Satoko filled her miniature lungs with the familiar aroma of dew and the plants bedecked with it, smiling in satisfaction.

Her form writhed and fell apart, and a chittering cloud of bats winged their way up into the skies, clawing at the cool night air they ascended towards the moon.

* * *

"Target has been silenced." Satoko announced cheerfully to her current leash-holder, one Mion Sonozaki, scion of the legendary vampire-hunting Sonozaki clan. Her identical younger twin, Shion Sonozaki, gave a cheerful wave from her place playing chess by the fire with _her_ personal vampire, Satoko's older brother Satoshi. (They had both been turned at the same time, but since Satoshi had always been her big brother, and still looked it, Satoko saw no reason to change his title.)

"Good job." Mion reported absently, her teal eyes intently focused on the sepia map laid out before her. "Where?"

Satoko pointed, and Mion carefully marked the place with a red pin, then looked up and offered Satoko a warm, if slightly wan, smile. Satoko studied her mistress critically, though her bright red eyes showed none of her thoughts. It had seemed barely a blink ago that Mion was the same height as Satoko, a wide-eyed little girl eager to play, but now she was on the cusp of adulthood, and already battle-worn and wear from her family work. A twinge of concern squirmed in Satoko's belly as she considered how quickly her most favorite mistress thus far would age, and then die. None of the previous Sonozaki leaders had understood Satoko and her brother quite so well, and she would miss Mion dearly once the exuberant young woman was gone.

The door to the Sonozaki hold suddenly burst open, and Satoko turned as Satoshi rose, both of their fangs instantly bared as Mion reached for a stake and Shion her wards. However, their instant bristle of readiness was unnecessary, for the abrupt and dramatic intrusion was merely two of Mion's informants and connections to the church –one sub-deacon named Keiichi Maebara, and his partner and fellow hunter, the nun Rena Ryugu. They flapped into the room, holy robes akimbo, in the irritably disheveled and exhausted manner of two agents after a long mission. Both of their draping holy garments were spattered in clotted blood both dark and crimson, gritty with ash, and Keiichi had a thermite burn on his left sleeve, Rena an ashy streak of the same chemical on her cheek.

" _Ghouls_." Keiichi proclaimed aloud, identifying the source of their mussed appearance and subsequent pique, and then collapsed dramatically into a chair, long limbs flopping, as Rena quietly walked over and placed their pins.

"It's been a rough night for everyone." Satoshi observed sympathetically as Keiichi's auburn-haired partner then flopped down onto a couch next to him, and Keiichi waved a groggy hand in acknowledgement.

"Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko laughed behind her hand, red eyes glinting maliciously at the two exhausted humans. "My my, Keiichi, it seems all your tough talk has come to nothing! Being so exhausted over mere _ghouls_ ~!"

"They were very big and there were a lot of them!" the brunet yelped in he and his partner's defense, rosary jingling on his chest as he flailed indignantly with all four limbs. Mion and her compatriots laughed, and Shion got up to draw the curtains.

"Someone's planning something." she announced succinctly, looking out into the gloomy night. "Too many incidents spread over too wide an area."

"Well, we'll be ready for them!" Mion added firmly, clenching her fist as her teal eyes gleamed with determination. Satoko had no doubt they would. Two vampires, a nun, a priest, and a pair of hunters –a grouping like that was just asking for trouble of the bloodiest kind.

The small blonde vampire grinned, baring her fangs. She couldn't _wait_.


	48. Day 18: Its a Sign (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote is from _The Secret Garden_ , which has a surprisingly large number of deeply relatable concepts and quotes for being a children's book written over a hundred years ago. I'm also starting to read the Umineko manga, so we'll see how that goes.

July 1st dawns to bright blue skies and fluffy clouds chasing each other over the horizon, a brisk wind that smells of summer grass and the sun comfortably warm instead of sticky-hot.

Rika's eyes sparkle as she walks to school, every wisp of cloud, every ray of sunshine, every blade of grass a thousand glints of new colors that she savors and commits to memory, storing them alongside the bank of a thousand years of repeated cycles.

Rika Furude has never witnessed July 1st, 1983 before. Every instant is new and unheralded, fresh and unexpected, and her heart is so brimming and overfull with joy that it wants to thrum out of her chest, like a beam of pure happiness.

Her friend's catch her mood, and Hanyuu's too –for Hanyuu is caught up in an equal and identical rapture– and it spreads among the group, becoming one of those intangible, heart-full moments, one of those eternal days, that seem to exist in a state outside mundane life.

_"One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun –which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes."_

For Rika, that day is today and that moment is now. It is not the dull, aching, exhausted and ennui-filled eternity that she thinks of, the prison and the maze that has closed around her for so long, but the rapturous joy of a human life lived to the fullest, and a life that is filled to bursting with moments of transcendent happiness and fun. She will find that life here, with her friends – _has_ found that life, and today is the day that she sets her foot upon that radiant path. She knows it.

The dewdrops on the glass sparkle like glittering crystals in a fairy's palace, flecking out rainbow bursts of color around the glints of their edges, and Rika's heart soars as she tilts her head back and watches the birds glide through the sky.

Today is the first day of her real life, and she cannot think of a day more suited to such beginnings.


	49. Day 19: Carnival (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its my birthday today! I'm turning twenty! Also, I stole, and tweaked, most of Satoko's introduction speech from the opening to _Greatest Show Unearthed_ , a song by Creature Feature. I was also going to have Shion dressed as Sadako from _The Ring_ , but then I learned _The Ring_ was a remake of _Ring_ , which in turn was a Japanese film made only in 1998, based off a book of the same name, written in 1991. So none of the Higurashi cast have any concept of _The Ring_ , which saddens me for some reason. So I made her a yūrei, which is apparently the type of ghost that Sadako is. Fun!

Keiichi sighed heavily beneath his hockey mask as he adjusted his vest under the enveloping leather of his too-large jacket. He supposed that he shouldn't be surprised Mion managed to dig up an actual bullet-proof vest from her family somewhere, but the fact that it was already red and tangentially in the same style as his usual vest gave him pause.

Oh well.

He hefted his bat and prepared to look menacing, knowing that hordes of Hinamizawa youngsters would be pouring into the haybale maze at any moment.

…

…any moment…

…any…moment…?

Keiichi lowered his bat and scratched his head.

In retrospect, perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea to let Satoko design the maze.

* * *

Proudly seated atop her crackling throne of old twine-bound hay, Satoko grinned at the small crowd of young Hinamizawans and Okinomiyans milling about, baring her additional plastic fangs.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls, welcome to the Hinamizawa Hay Maze!" she chirped as angelically as she could manage, clapping her hands together and trying a beatific smile. Perhaps it was offset just a tad by her ominously-flapping, high-collared, red-lined black vampire's cape, but really, who could blame her for trying? She forged onward valiantly, gesturing towards the gate below her. "Behind this doorway lies a ghastly concoction of delight, horror, fantasy, and terror! Yes, designed by yours truly, this hay maze holds a vast array of ghoulish delights, traps, and treats! The first group to find their way to the center gets the greatest prize of all –otherwise, everyone who finds their way out without assistance by our inhabitant monsters gets a whole bucketfull of candy!"

The crowd below her cheered excitedly, and Satoko beamed, whipping out her arm as her oversized cloak flared dramatically. "Now go forth, my minions of darkness, and enjoy my maze!" she crowed, and the assembled youths gave varied whoops of excitement as they flooded forward into the haybale maze.

Satoko's pointed teeth all but sparkled as she rubbed her hands in glee while the last few trickled in, smirking diabolically. She was so glad Mion had assigned her to the "maze creation" portion of the club's impromptu Halloween festival. Poor Keiichi-san and Shion had to be the monsters, and she was pretty sure by day's end at least one of them would be coming home with bruises from panicked maze-goers throwing defensive punches.

She was betting on Keiichi, with or without his extra assurance of a Kevlar vest and functional hockey mask. Shion's yūrei, with her white kimono and long bedraggled black hair, was absolutely terrifying, and Satoko doubted anyone would get close enough to punch her. No, they'd be running in the opposite direction the moment they saw her, squealing in terror.

Satoko _loved_ this Western-style Halloween.

* * *

"Carve, carve, carve, carve out the eyes~!" Rena sang happily, chipping away at the yellow flesh of her pumpkin with the small knife she'd gotten from her dad's toolbox. All around, the younger members of Hinamizawa echoed her faithfully, grinning and squealing at the cold, sticky feel of the pumpkin juice on their bare hands.

Gathered around the auburn-haired teen like ducklings around a mother, these costumed children were all carving out jack-o'-lanterns of their very own under her august supervision, reproducing some of the ghoulish and the giddy designs Rena had drawn out and pricked onto the hard outer layer of the pumpkins herself.

"There!" Rena said with satisfaction, finishing out her latest example and turning around in her lap to show to her rapt audience. "Isn't he cute?"

The children all oohed and aahed over the droopy-eyed pumpkin face, and Rena grinned as she placed it on the wooden fence near the Furude Shrine and gave her most-recently-finished jack-o'-lantern a fond pat, looking at her other examples, several of which bore rather more gruesome and frightening expressions than the innocent chibis she and this latest group were carving out.

She couldn't wait to see these lit with candles and lining the paths of the wagon ride.

* * *

"Mew, what a cute little bat." Rika hummed as she finished the last delicate line of black, drawing her slender paintbrush away as the fidgeting boy in the chair leapt up and grabbed a mirror, squealing excitedly at the chibi nocturnal mammal painted across his cheek. He scampered off into the autumn sunshine, and another youth plopped herself down on the plastic chair as Rika sighed and reached for her paintbrushes again, laid alongside the artist's pallet Keiichi had swiped from his dad.

"Hau, your hair looks so lovely." Hanyuu complemented her latest victim alongside Rika, brushing the dye-loaded comb through the excitedly-bouncing toddler's shoulder-length locks, leaving an orange and black streak behind. "Would you like some purple, too?"

"You're enjoying this a lot, mew." Rika commented around her angelic smile, starting on the requested pumpkin as her client pointed excitedly at the laminated folder, babbling incoherently. An irk mark throbbed at the side of her temples. "Perhaps one of my brushes will slip and poke you in your stupid excited eye, Hanyuu. Nipah~!"

"Hauhauhau…" the lilac-haired miko whimpered, shoulders sinking as she brushed a purple streak through the other toddler's hair. "Rika, you don't have to be so grumpy about facepainting…"

 _I've been doing this for four hours!_ The Furude shrine maiden shrieked internally, sending her latest project off with a smile and a wave.

"Mew, its hard to paint _every single person_ in Hinamizawa, sir."

* * *

"Alright!" Mion shouted over the ominous rumble of her four-wheeler, looking behind herself to see the host of excited children clinging to haybales atop the rickety flatbed trailer hitched up to her vehicle. "You guys ready to have some spooky fun!?"

"YEAH!" the younger residents of Hinamizawa cheered, and Mion grinned, turning and revving the engine with one foot.

"Get ready for the Hinamizawa Trail of Terror, then! Whoo-hoo!" she cried excitedly, the entire contraption picking up speed as she drove towards the distant, twinkling lights of the jack-o'-lanterns laid out along one of the more obscure paths. Her club waited there, waited to scare the _pants_ off the delighted children bouncing on the haybales in the back, waited in an array of costumes both childish and practical.

They were _so_ doing this again next year.


	50. Day 20: Shaping Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> councillorsparatus, I finally did it! This snippet is actually based off a drawing by ChibiRisa20 on deviantart, and my apologies for not directly stating what the twins give their mom, but like…I don't know what the hell that food is. It looks like a waffle, but then there's chocolate(?) and sprinkles(?) and bacon? Or are those pink-red bits strawberries?
> 
> I'm assuming it's a weird Japanese dish and leaving it at that. Also, Hanyuu apparently has a real name and it is literally nothing but a long string of titles concerning her otherworldly "demon" clan and their duties and she didn't even have a personal name until Rika's ancestor Riku Furude gave one to her when they got married or whenever. Fun fact.

"You're sure about this?"

_"Very sure, Kei-chan."_

"How sure is sure?"

A sigh from the other end. _"Kei-chan, Onee and I are working on our Mother's Day surprise right this very minute. Don't make me burn all our efforts."_

Keiichi scratched his cheek. "Right, yeah, s-sorry. Its just…you know, you're the one who was most recently in the big city, so I thought you'd have the best idea of which books are hopping right now. I don't know anything my mom doesn't own already or has on order."

_"I'm telling you, this one is the bee's knees. Do you need me to reassure you more, or are you cool?"_

He looked down at the book in his lap. "Uh, yeah, I think I'm good…"

 _"Bye then."_ Shion said briskly before he could continue with his vague notions of speech. _"Tell your mom we said hi!"_

"Will do, yeah." Keiichi hung up, and looked at the wrapped novel sitting in his lap with trepidation.

_How hard can this be?_

"So, uh, mom…" Keiichi began nervously, holding the paper-wrapped book behind his back. "Being that its Mother's Day and all that…I got you something."

Aiko Maebara turned around, blinking a little in surprise. "Oh? Keiichi, you didn't have to…"

"Yeah, well, I…" Keiichi pulled out the book and offered it to her shyly, scratching his cheek. "I know you like mystery novels and such…so I asked Shion which ones were really popping back in the big city right now, you know, since we aren't in the thick of things anymore and she's just left her boarding school…"

His mother flushed in surprise and pleasure, reverently taking the wrapped book from him and brushing a worshipful hand over the cover. "Keiichi! Why, thank you!"

He flushed himself as his mother wrapped her arms around him, hugging her son close. "You always were such a thoughtful boy."

Keiichi smiled and laughed self-consciously, his blush fading as he hunched his shoulders. "Aw mom…well, you know. Its your day and all that."

Aiko smiled and pulled away a little to fondly scruff his hair.

"That's my boy."

* * *

"Position clear?"

"Check."

"Batcha appeased yesterday?"

"Check."

"Mom due to wake up soon?"

"Check."

"Presentation?"

"Pretentious, and check."

Shion rolled her eyes and offered a halfhearted glare at her twin. "Which one of us was sent to a _refined_ Catholic boarding school, hmm?" she asked archly, waving the whipped-cream-smeared spatula at her sister. "A meal that looks disgusting is going to be treated as disgusting, even if it tastes absolutely amazing. We've got the garnish and the plating and everything arranged just so, and as such, our already-appealing dish becomes even _more_ appealing."

"Pretentious." Mion muttered rebelliously, shifting from foot to foot as she stood near the door of the kitchen. Shion tossed the spatula into the water-filled sink and sighed, joining her elder twin as the two headed off down the hall. The Sonozaki sisters had timed this to a nicety, of course –it was hardly more than a few seconds after taking up their positions outside their parents' door that Shion, ear pressed against the paper, heard the sound of their alarm clock buzzing through the walls. Dad had obligingly offered to attend Batcha yesterday (fulfilling _his_ Mother's Day duties), so their way was clear as they heard Akane Sonozaki rustling around on her futon.

Shion, with both hands empty, knocked on the door, and heard the soft chuckle of their mom.

"Come in." she said, amusement dancing in her voice at the expected Mother's Day antics her two daughters would display. Shion slid the door aside with her foot, and she and Mion entered the room in unison, kneeling to offer their mother the (beautifully presented) breakfast dessert dish they had assembled.

"Happy Mother's Day, mom!" the two chirped, and Akane blinked, a hand straying to her chest and eyes widening as she saw the complex dish laid out for her enjoyment.

"Oh my…girls, you didn't have to go to such troubles for me." she breathed in surprise. "Just your usual card o-or gift would've been fine!"

"Hey, I didn't go to that ridiculously fancy European school for nothin'." Shion said with a grin, nudging her sister with a playful elbow. "I had to show Onee how things are done, after all!"

"And there's no effort too small to go through for our mom!" Mion added with a sunny smile, teal eyes glinting as she looked towards her twin.

_Top that one, Shion._

The younger Sonozaki twin merely stuck out her tongue at Mion as their mother leaned down to inspect her tribute.

* * *

"Come with me. Now."

"Wha- but- hauhauhau…" Hanyuu spluttered and then whimpered as Rika grabbed her by her sleeve and abruptly dragged her out the door. "Rika, slow down!"

Rika dragged her through the bushes near the Furude Shrine, and then down one of the small deer trails, heading upwards. "You know how Chie-sensei talked about the cycle of life a few weeks ago?" she asked in her usual low voice after a few minutes, dropping her childish mannerisms as soon as they were out of sight of the house.

"Hauhau, of course." Hanyuu responded, nonplussed.

"Creatures live and consume energy, then, as they die, their flesh decays and returns to the environment, feeding it in turn." Rika paraphrased, still dragging Hanyuu firmly through the undergrowth as the ground began to ascend steeply. "How old are you, Hanyuu?"

"Oh…" Hanyuu thought she saw where this was going, wobbling a little as they half-climbed, half-crawled up the steep face of the hill. "Rika, I don't think even my bones will be left anywhere anymore. My mortal shell sank to the bottom of a swamp after my death, and there are many creatures that would have fed on my remains."

"I know." Rika responded abruptly, making a slight turn as they forced their way through another part of the undergrowth, the ground leveling out a little. "Your flesh will be gone by now, and your bones in fragments, if they even exist at all…just as it would be if you'd been properly cremated."

Hanyuu stumbled a little as they came to a sudden clear space, with a light fringe of grass covering the stony ground, which abruptly terminated in a cliff, explaining the lack of shrubs –the dirt was too shallow and too rocky to support their roots.

She caught her breath at the view, though –it was everything one could see from the shrine, and more, because they were high enough on the mountain slope to see the roof of the Furude Shrine itself peeking out through the trees below them. "Rika…hauhauhau, this is beautiful!"

"I know." Rika replied calmly. She tugged Hanyuu to the side a little, and pointed. Hanyuu's breath caught again, and she instinctively reached out and squeezed Rika's hand.

It was a stone tablet. Oh, it was rather clumsily made, and rather obviously the product of someone with only the strength of a ten-year-old girl, but it was still there, and the message behind it was staggering. No one of Hanyuu's clan had ever made her a grave marker. Not even her daughter, Rika's many-times great-grandmother.

A line of characters were thickly scribed down the side, a little primitive perhaps, but made with the clear intent to last.

_ハィ=リューン・イェアソムール・ジェダ 羽入  
Hai-Ryuun Ieasomuuru Jeda Hanyuu._

"I read up on some of the old texts to find the proper name, the name of your clan, that is." Rika said quietly after a moment, as tears stood in Hanyuu's eyes. She slipped her hand out of the goddess's and turned rummaging around in the bushes nearby. "I thought, it would be a shame if no one ever memorialized you for what you did."

Hanyuu swallowed thickly and used her billowing, salmon-colored sleeves to wipe away her tears. "They did. They built a shrine for me, and they worshipped me on its altar."

"They enshrined Oyashiro-sama." Rika replied, her deep voice blunt. "They forgot who died to give that name life."

She turned around, and more tears welled in Hanyuu's eyes as she saw the bouquet of flowers her descendant had carefully wrapped and apparently placed here beforehand. Rika walked over to the stone and laid them down, stepping back to look on it with Hanyuu.

"Happy Mother's Day." Rika coughed after an awkward, clumsy moment of her silence. "I made you this –I thought it…bad, that no one ever left anything for you at your grave. That you didn't even have one, after…after all that you've done. And I thought, well, what better place to put it than somewhere undisturbed…somewhere that you could look out over Hinamizawa from. I thought-"

Rika's voice trembled, and Hanyuu silently put out her hand as the younger _miko_ fell silent. Tomorrow, no doubt, the ancient child would be back to pranking Hanyuu with spicy kimichi and her cold little comments on Hanyuu's usefulness and lack thereof, probably denying that this moment ever happened, but Hanyuu knew, sure as the sun rising in the east, that they would both be back here in a year, and every year after, until Rika returned to the same dust she had been born from.

"Thank you, daughter." Hanyuu said softly.

Neither would admit they were crying.

* * *

Miyoko hummed happily as she skipped along the street, the shiny gold-and-red pinwheel flashing and dancing in her hands, spinning rapidly both from the breeze of her passage and the brisk spring wind.

"Mama! Look what I have!" she announced excitedly as her mother stepped out onto the front stoop, wiping her hands on her apron, waving the pinwheel manically above her head.

"Oh, my! How lovely!" the older woman said, kneeling to take the paper confection like Miyoko had offered her a flower. "Where did you get this?"

"I won it!" Miyoko squealed, flapping her arms rapidly as her amber eyes sparkled. "I won it at the coin game and I was gonna keep it 'cause its so, so pretty, but then I thought, since its Mother's Day today, I could give it to you, Mama!"

"Well, I very much appreciate it." Her mother said with a warm smile, brushing her fingers through Miyoko's wind-tousled hair. "Why don't you come inside and eat these cookies I just finished making as a reward?"

"Yay! Cookies!" Miyoko giggled, swinging gleefully from her mother's free arm as the two turned and went back into the house.

The wind blew in the street, perhaps revealing a flash of green, a whispering wave of midnight blue, a haunting smile and wise, deep violet eyes, but the mirage was soon gone in the dancing waves of asphalt, broken by the excited cries of Miyoko Tanashi.


	51. Day 21: Left Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing to read Umineko. Beatrice is a big fat meanie. Ange is great and deserves all the good things in the world despite her character's participation of the whole Japanese "onii-chan" fetish. Shannon and George should get married and be happy forever. Kinzo is an ASSHOLE.

Satoshi sleeps.

He is not used to dreaming coherently –except those few, terrifying dreams, later on, after he quit the team, those dreams of Oyashiro-sama's hollow-eyed presence at his bedside, staring down at him with a look of such utter, cosmic disappointment, he almost welcomed the cold fingers that stole around his neck as nothing less than he deserved–

Except now, his dreams seem more disjointed than ever. His memory, when he can remember anything, is extremely fuzzy. He has a blurred sensation –or is it just mere intention? Has he even done it?– of buying that huge stuffed bear for Satoko, of calling Coach because it doesn't fit on his bike, and then-

Blurry, static blips of fear, of alarm, of _oh no it didn't work_ and utter, soul-shocking terror, jitters of discomfort that his mind shies away from and flashes of bright, nigh-on technicolor images, Irie's worried face, the bear, being in a car, a burning in the crook of his elbow and a flash of steel.

Darkness.

Satoshi can't remember, can't seem to piece together those broken fragments of impulses and memory and future intent and wrench it all together into a cohesive whole, can't even drag together enough pieces to tell him what happened or even _care_ that he doesn't seem to have awoken in…

…a while. A length of time. It seems long, but haven't his nights all been like that lately, huddled over the phone and typing out numbers at random, the cool plastic buttons cupping his fingertips like old friends as he dials up Rena, Mion, Mion _(Shion, her name is Shion, a whisper of memory about temple names)_ , even Rika, just to have someone to talk to, someone to keep the lurking shadows at bay. Auntie and Uncle won't let him use the phone, they always yell about him wasting their money when they catch him at it, but Satoshi almost welcomes the sharp sting of pain that accompanies their slaps and the deafening force of their yells.

(It distracts him from the extra footstep limping along behind as he crawls to he and Satoko's room like a frightened, broken animal.)

Satoshi doesn't know how long its been. His memory is a mishmash of darkness and discomfort and a bright, hot light shining down on his face, blurry and melding together into the familiar cloying black of slumber. The groggy traces of his intellect wonder if this is divine punishment by Oyashiro-sama, or something else entirely. A delusion, perhaps, or maybe that bat in his hands erred and Auntie lived and-

Satoshi wonders if he's dead. He feels as though death should be more…definitive, that his mother and the latest in the long line of their stepfathers would be waiting for him across the river, but perhaps the religion he knows is wrong. Perhaps he is just another lost soul, wandering through the world until his purpose is fulfilled and the bear he bought for Satoko is delivered to her. He wonders what happened, if Irie is dead too. Perhaps their car crashed.

His head _hurts_ when he tries to think about what happened after those blurry scratches of memory of _Satoko bear_ and _car street bright_ and _Irie worried pain_ and, further back, _bat hitting hands shaky **blood**_ and _Auntie dead yes finally Satoko **free**_. It's a deep, grinding pain, like someone's wrapped a steel compress around his skull and is cruelly increasing the terrible _pressure_ , winching the clamps tighter millimeter by agonizing millimeter.

He can't think. He's too disoriented, too groggy, and it _aches_ when he tries: everything's too confusing, he just wants to _sleep_ and be free of pain for a little, but no matter how long he sleeps (if this is sleep), the discomfort and swirling storm of thought-fragments and confusion and _strain_ never abates, never lessens.

Satoshi just wants it to _end_ , so he can go back to his family, go back to Satoko, with the stuffed bear held high on his crumbling shoulders.

But he sleeps, and dreams away, even as the worlds re-rewind, again and again and again, unaware of the drama and tragedy playing out on the exterior of his white box.


	52. Day 22: Set it Free (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thought of the club dressed up in ridiculously overdone glam rock costumes and giving a probably-not-that-good-but-you-can-bet-your-boots-its-enthusiastic performance made me giggle, so this was born. Also, for the lyrics, I just picked some of the edgier things off of that one tumblr post about Very Quotable Things That Were Said in a Stupid Context and tried to do something with Higurashi content that would rhyme with them. Also, Mion probably has everything in human existence either in her basement (not the torture dungeon one, the other one) or on call from one of her legions of relatives, so don't tell me they probably couldn't have gotten all this stuff within a few weeks. One of her uncles had a magic pair of swim shorts, for goodness sake.

With liberal applications of studded leather straps, a bit of artistic shredding of old clothes, and an entire menagerie of chemical products, ranging from tacky makeup and hair products to dye and nail polish, the Hinamizawa Heathens were ready for their first gig.

Fire-Mouth Keiichi, he of the spiked purple hair and wrapped leather strips all the way up to his elbows, cracked his knuckles, black-painted nails gleaming in the faint light of the moon, before he placed his hands on the instrument of what would soon be his audience's demise, a gleaming steel-plated guitar.

Mad Dog Mion, she of the enthusiastically-ripped bright red crop-top and copious amounts of sparkling body glitter, grinned as she set her elbow-length fingerless-gloved hands upon her rickety old keyboard, brightly decorated with numerous flecks of neon paint in the manner of an enthusiastic toddler.

Rena the Rave-Master, her black-draped form flapping with enough scarf-sized tatters to insulate against the darkest winter, raised her hands high, blue eyes glittering in anticipation behind her mask of sequins, eyeliner, and glitter as she poised her drumsticks to begin.

Screamin' Satoko, her blonde hair arranged like a hedgehog's and colored in a rainbow of red and green streaks, grinned even wider, black-painted lips spreading across her sparkling white teeth as she held her painted and sparkling hands out to the microphone, her throat bobbing against her tooth-spiked choker as she swallowed in preparedness.

Rika, green sundress billowing, swung her legs gently from her perch on the plastic garden chair set before the groups impromptu stage, Hanyuu cringing and covering her ears in the identical chair beside her.

"HINAMIZAWAAAAA!" Satoko bellowed into the cheap microphone, which squeaked and popped, vibrating her voice into nothing as the echoes of her shriek were swallowed up by the forest surrounding the small, empty clearing. "ARE YOU READY TO ROOOOCK!?"

"Yes we are, sirs!" Rika cheered, thin voice rising above the silence as best she could as she punched the air enthusiastically. Hanyuu just shook her head rapidly, squeezing her hands tighter over her ears.

"THEN WE SHALL ROCK!"

Satoko raised her arm, and the thunder of music began as she slammed it down, the bedazzled club members pounding away with all their might as the wild, throbbing strains of rock music filled the small clearing and echoed faintly along the deserted stretches of forest as they stretched towards the town. Given as they were mere amateurs, the volume of the music far exceeded its cadence and coherence, but perhaps that was to be expected.

"OOOOOOOH!" Satoko shrieked into the microphone, snatching it off the wobbling stand and pouring her whole heart and soul into the incoherent vocalizations that were rock music. "I WILL FIGHT FOR HINAMIZAWA, MY HOME, GOD MAY JUDGE US BUT HIS SINS OUTNUMBER OUR OWN!"

Hanyuu's right eye twitched indignantly even as she pressed her hands tight over her ears to block out the shrieking of Keiichi's poor guitar and the wild pounding of Rena's drums, to say nothing of the wails of Mion's punished keyboard.

"VIOLENCE FOR VIOLENCE IS THE RULE OF THE BEASTS, BUT THEY TRY TO DROWN OUR HOME, WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING AT LEAST! TRY TO SCREW WITH US AND WE'LL TOSS YOUR CORPSE DOWN A WELL, I WILL FACE GOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL!"

Rika grinned and nudged the cringing Hanyuu with her elbow as Satoko bent back and screamed incoherently into the microphone, silhouetted against the full moon.

"AAAAAAAAAAH! HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAA! HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAA!"

Satoko hopped backwards as Keiichi lunged forward onto his knees, strumming with all his might as he poured out his equivalent of a white-hot series of riffs and cords, mistreated guitar thrumming and wailing out the thunderous, mismatched bars of music as Mion grinned and punched a clenched fist up in the air, her other hand flying over the keys of her keyboard as she pounded out a counterpart rhythm.

Keiichi finally stood, hopping back on one foot and still playing madly as Satoko strode forward to take her place again, slotting her microphone into the stand and grabbing the stand to swing it down like a partner in a dance as she bellowed into the microphone itself.

"HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAA! HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAA! OYASHIRO-SAMA'S GOT THE POWER TODAY, SO PICK A GOD AND PRAY, 'CAUSE WE'RE GONNA SEND YOU ON YOUR WAY! HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAA! HINAMIZAWAAAAAAAAAA!"

The players all built up towards their thunderous end, and then, with a crash and a bang from Rena's symbols, the song ended, Satoko punching her own fist up into the air.

"WHOO!"

Silence rang across the tiny clearing, and Rika beamed, clapping her hands rapidly, the sound tiny and brittle compared to the earlier clangorous madness of the club's "playing".

"Mew, bravo! Bravo!" she chirped, swinging her legs giddily, as the band all took smug bows from their place on the scrap of stage. "Encore! Encore!"

"Hau…hauhau…" Hanyuu whimpered beside her, lying slumped and boneless in her chair with swirly eyes. "You guys aren't allowed to watch Western music programs anymore…"


	53. Day 23: Mind & Body (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takano actually does have some frame of reference to Christianity –I don't know how much, but Hifumi Takano talked to her about the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter being largely symbolic (thus laying the seed for her own mad quest to memorialize both herself and him as gods), and she even quotes Matthews (I think) in the manga at the end of Massacre, and mentions the Four Horsemen in the anime at the same time. So like, she does have some sort of knowledge of it. It's probably not a stretch to say that Hifumi may have been a Christian of some sort.

Death reigned in Hinamizawa.

It was only to be expected, of course. The fools had ignored their legends and their history, the tales of Onigafuchi, and now the rage of a god descended upon them, wreaking hideous vengeance for the disrespect shown to its emissary.

Miyo Takano chuckled darkly as she sat in the command vehicle of the Wild Dogs, idly stirring her fingers to the strains of music she remembered from the few times Hifumi Takano had spared a moment from his research to take himself and his granddaughter to the tiny Catholic church near his home. She remembered how dolorous and imposing the strains of Christian hymns had been to her childhood self, so resonant and powerful within the small walls of the church.

She could almost hear them now, heralding the birth of a new god.

Man created gods, placed them on pedestals, out of fear. A god who was not feared would not be worshipped, and gods became reality through pain, through the _curses_ they manifested upon their disloyal followers. With her own hands, she had shaped and manifested a curse as fine as any of the days of old, as destructive and all-encompassing any of the Plagues of Egypt. With her own hands, she tore out the life of a pretender to her divine throne, a false prophet, and left her body out for her followers to discover, to see the destruction of their ruined idol and know, had they the wit to see it, that their own destruction was soon to follow.

_"Platoon One to HQ. Purge complete. Four escapees have been shot."_

_"Platoon Two to HQ. Purge complete. No escapees."_

_"Platoon Three to HQ. Currently taking care of about a dozen escapees."_

_"Platoon Four to HQ. Purge complete. No escapees."_

_…_

_"Platoon Three to HQ. Thirteen escapees, all confirmed dead. Purge complete."_

The crackles of the radio only brought her more power, built her pedestal higher, and what did she care, if the men in the command vehicle all turned their faces away and wasted their breath on regrets and guilt for the 2,000 dead, looked at her as though she were mad? To curse and to be feared was to hold the strings of godhood between her slender fingers. Gods were on a different level than humans, so how could they possibly understand her?

"What will you leave behind when you die?" she laughed at her inquirer's startled, stupid-looking face. "When your flesh has rotted or burned away and your bones have been crushed into sand, what will you have left behind?"

Power surged through her veins, and she swept her arms wildly as she spoke.

 _"I have left behind a curse!_ People will fear the curse, history will tell of the curse, and I will be remembered through all eternity! I have finally reached the realm of godhood! Worship me! Sing my praises! _Fear_ me! _**I am Oyashiro-sama**!"_


	54. Day 24: Sunrise/Sunset (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was so fucking long, I gave up trying to write actual thorough scenes of each game after I got a little more than a third into it. I was gonna do this originally for the summer solstice, but, alas, it took too long to write, even though I actually started this before June even began. Oh well. ITS FINALLY FUCKING DONE AND I DON'T HAVE TO CARE ABOUT IT ANYMORE, HA-HA!

The ground was dark, the grass wet with dew and shrouded in shadow. Crickets and cicadas chittered noisily from every direction, and the deep blue sky was smudged with a bright nimbus of yellow, orange, red, and pink. The large, looming mountains that ringed Hinamizawa's small township were hulking masses of shadow in the predawn light, hemming in the anciently-thatched collection of small buildings.

"Ugh…"

Keiichi Maebara hung bodily over the worn wooden railings that fenced off the outcrop near Furude Shrine. The centuries-old wood was smooth, dew-damp, and heavy, holding up the drowsy-eyed brunette easily as he drooped over it like a wilted stem of grass.

_Why did I agree to this?_

"Still feeling sleepy, Keiichi-kun?" a disgustingly chipper voice came from his other side –though Rena _did_ sound more tired than normal. The auburn-haired teen wore her usual white dress, and her purple bows were tied as neatly as ever at her throat and the small of her back, and her favorite white beret was at its usual angle on her head; the only concession to the abnormally early hour was the dimmer gleam of her blue eyes and the slight droop to her head as she leaned against one of the posts to the same fence he was draped over. She didn't seem concerned about the damp stone of the pavement under her white dress, or the potentiality of crawling bugs –like him, she was waiting.

"Oh-ho-ho~! It seems as though the two of you have grown too old to be waking up so early!" Satoko laughed triumphantly from one of the stone benches behind them, swinging her jean-shorts-clad legs exuberantly to and fro as she did. Rena spared her a fond smile, while Keiichi only grunted and weakly flapped a hand with a vague attempt at threatening menace.

Satoshi might have scolded his younger sister for her acerbic statement, but he was sprawled, asleep, with his back against the other low, armless stone bench, one arm folded over his chest as the other dragged against the ancient stone pavement. Even though, technically, they were all supposed to stay awake at this point, no one felt the need to disturb the pale, wan-faced boy's slumber.

"Mew, Satoko, you shouldn't be so mean. They did have to wake up earlier than we did to get here on time." Rika supplied cheerfully from Satoko's left side, wriggling her bare toes inside her loose white sandals. "Our house is right next to the shrine, after all."

"Hauuu…so…tired…" Hanyuu yawned from Rika's other side, leaning against her cousin with drooping eyes. Out of all of the gathered members, she was the most visibly exhausted; her long lilac hair was even curlier and more full of volume than normal, and the strap of her pink sundress had slipped over one shoulder as she leaned against Rika, half-asleep.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's with all the sleepyheads?" came an exuberant voice from behind the group, back towards the path that lead to the shrine, and Keiichi grunted and weakly turned his head to look as Rena raised her eyes and the trio on the bench glanced over their shoulders. Satoshi's eyes slid open as he lazily turned his cheek to glance towards the voice.

Mion Sonozaki stood at the entrance to the outcropping, flanked by shrubs and other various riotously growing summertime greenery, her sister Shion behind her. The elder Sonozaki twin was grinning, and a notepad was tucked under one arm, a pen behind her ear. "Aright losers, who's ready to greet the sun on this fine Midsummer's morning?"

"Me!" Rika trilled, raising her hand brightly.

"Ready, sir!" Satoko saluted, swiveling her hips to face herself the other way on the bench and cocking her arm in an exuberant, if probably not correct, salute.

"Hau..." Hanyuu yawned again, slumping slightly as the support of Rika's body shifted.

"All right, Mion, let's get this party started!" Keiichi said with forced energy, heaving himself away from the brink and groggily punching his fist in the air.

Rena stood up and smiled, locking her hands in front of herself. "Ready, Mi-chan!"

Satoshi slumped his way upright and yawned behind one hand, peering at the two green-haired twins in befuddled exhaustion. "Muu, why do we have to wake up before the sun does, Mion?"

"Like, duh!" Mion brandished the clipboard at her assembled companions like it was a policeman's badge, flashing her bright white teeth in a gleaming grin that was almost threatening in its enthusiasm. "Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the entire year! We aren't wasting one single minute of daylight!"

"What Onee means, basically, is that today is the endurance trial for the Hinamizawa Club." Shion announced with equally ominous cheeriness, pointing one slender finger upright in illustration. "From the first light of the dawn until the last gleam of sunset, this summer solstice will hold an Olympic-level matchup between the fearsome members of our organization!"

"Hell yeah!" Keiichi showed wakefulness for the first time that morning, straightening his shoulders as he clenched his fists, periwinkle eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. "Today will be the day that the sun rises on Keiichi Maebara's empire! What's the first challenge, Mion?"

"Yeah, Mi-chan, what are we doing?"

"Bring it on!"

"Alright!" Mion laughed. "That's the kind of attitude I like to see from the Hinamizawa Club!"

She plucked out the pen that was tucked behind her ear and spun it rapidly around her fingers before putting its tip to the paper. "As you all know, I canvassed each member of the club for an activity that they'd like to see, host, and judge, and I, as your leader, have spaced these activities throughout the day accordingly. After we see the sunrise, and greet it appropriately, we'll retire to Rika and Satoko and Hanyuu's house for a spot of Russian Roulette Breakfast, suggested and hosted by our dear Rika Furude. Whoever can eat the most and tell us the most about what they ate wins –bonus points for not revealing it when you bite into something nasty. Following that, Rena Ryugu has submitted the contest of River-Raft Pooh Sticks –we each build a raft to the best of our ability, and the first person to drift past the suspension bridge on a raft without paddling, swimming, or otherwise helping move their raft in any way wins."

" _That's_ why she said to bring our swimsuits." Keiichi muttered under his breath, eyes lifting upwards with his epiphany.

"Afterwards," Mion continued brightly, unfazed by his near-silent interruption. "-Satoko-chan has put forth the challenge of Mountain Capture the Flag. The same general rules of capture-the-flag apply, except we'll be holding it on Satoko's trap mountain!"

"Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko cackled, holding a hand to her mouth, as everyone else shivered and edged away.

"In the next slot," Mion grinned, flashing her bright white teeth. "-my most munificent sister Shion has suggested a Frozen T-shirt Race –players must melt and then put on one of the waterlogged T-shirts that's been chilling in our freezer for a few days, then run a race from the shrine to the school and back. Afterwards, we'll have lunch for my own suggestion: a Picnic Basket Relay. Two-man teams will race to see who can lay down their picnic down first; one puts out the blanket and accoutrements, and their partner then puts it all back. This game has an additional penalty -whichever team comes in last has to set up everyone else's picnics for real before we eat, and clean everything up after."

"Mew, I hope everyone is a very neat eater." Rika chirped from the bench, closing her eyes and swinging her bare legs merrily as her green dress swished around them.

"Hehehe." Mion chuckled, her teal eyes glinting in a way that would more befit the Prince of Darkness than an average Japanese schoolgirl. "No promises. Anyways, after lunch, we have Keiichi's suggestion, which is your average game of Dodgeball –but with water balloons! Whoever stays the driest by the end of the time is our winner! That'll tide us over for a while, and then we have Satoshi's game –a Blanket Run! In the same teams as our Picnic Basket Relay, we will have one partner get on a blanket, and the other will drag them in a race across the lawn. _But this is no ordinary race!_ "

Everyone jumped at Mion's sudden increase in exuberance: a fearsome thing, and something one would previously have thought impossible. The mint-haired leader of the Hinamizawa Club flourished her clipboard again, eyes gleaming as she assumed the stance of some victorious general about to lord it over her defeated foes. "The course of this blanket run is up the steps of the shrine, through the woods, across the stream, and then back to the school again, and the partner on the blanket may not _leave_ the blanket at any time!"

There was a universal gasp and paling of faces; also, a decent amount of sparks glinting in the eyes of Mion's comrades as ambitions and plans were kindled, and thirst for blood rose.

"Following that, our dear Hanyuu Furude's suggestion: a Sponge Launch, in which our teams have one partner use a slingshot to launch a wet sponge at his or her teammate, who then catches it and wrings it out into a bucket. Whoever fills their bucket first, wins, however you might discover that finding your bucket is harder than it looks. To keep matters fair, the rest of these suggestions are of my own design, as there isn't quite enough time in the day to do a double-down for everyone else. And so!"

The clipboard was raised high to the sky.

"A rapid-fire set of endurance trails for our evening set! First! Firefall, in which we all gather tinder and firewood for our barbecue dinner, followed by a Marshmallow Race, in which we get American, and whoever roasts the most hotdogs and the best marshmallows for smores is our winner! Afterwards is our Christmas in July, in which we race to build the best forts out of any outdoor material we can find and then exchange a barrage of snowballs, in the form of more water balloons! Whoever lasts longest, without their fort falling apart or getting themselves wet, snatches the victory! Last but certainly not the least, a firefly-catching game, in which whoever catches the most fireflies before the sun sets is the winner! What do you say, my fine band of friends!"

The answer, as always, was unanimous. Every fist was clenched and punched into the air, and the words "HELL YEAH!" rolled across the predawn clearing.

Thus, the battle lines were drawn, and an almost palpable aura of readiness and bloodthirst shuddered across the dimly lit clearing as all eyes turned to the thin line of gold along the tree-studded horizon, and all minds turned to plans on how to snatch victory for themselves.

Mion, as usual, had calculated things to a nicety. It wasn't more than a few moments after she and her twin had arrived, that Satoko shouted aloud and pointed to the distant horizon, where a burningly bright sliver of orange-gold peeped over the edge of a mountain slope, scattering spear-like rays the same color of the inner flesh of a grapefruit over the velvety mass of trees.

"Whoohoo!" Keiichi cried, pumping both clenched fists in the air as the sun showed its edge, piercing a golden dot in the lower edge of the rosy dawn sky. "Today, sun, you rise on my day of triumph!"

"Alright!" Rena laughed, waving merrily to the infinestably-slowly rising ball of fire as it crept millimeter by millimeter into the skyline. "I feel like today's going to be a fun day, I do!"

"Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko laughed behind her hand, springing up onto the ancient wooden railing and hanging off it by her feet and one hand as she waved exuberantly to the sun with the other. "On this Midsummer's day I shall taste triumph over all you pathetic peasants! Oh-ho-ho~!"

"Mew. I feel like much blood will be spilled today." Rika chirped in the background, smiling as her violet eyes briefly closed.

"Hau, hauhauhau!" Hanyuu whimpered, clutching both hands to her petite chest. "W-who do you think will rise victorious?"

"Ha! That shall be none other than me, Shion Sonozaki!" the younger Sonozaki twin cackled, folding her arms as her teal eyes gleamed with confident bloodlust.

"Ahahaha!" Mion laughed. "Good, good, this is what I like to see! Well then, with the sun having dropped the checkered flag, let's all head to Rika's house and get ready for pain!"

* * *

Keiichi surveyed the battlefield grimly. After the group had all packed into Rika, Hanyuu, and Satoko-chan's dining room, which was also their bedroom, the meal had been laid out by an innocently-beaming Rika-chan on a low table in the center of the bare floor. Everything was a bit squished, since the room itself was small and there were eight inhabitants, but they made it work, especially since Rika-chan retired to the small kitchenette, wide, seeming-innocent violet eyes gleaming with wicked intent.

The brunet swallowed hard as he looked at the feast laid before them. Everyone had been given one paper plate of tamagoyaki, miso shiru, and natto, with a communal plate of salmon and pitcher of milk. Keiichi's right eye twitched as he surveyed his opponents, wondering who would be first to crack. Both Rena and the Sonozaki twins had scary-competent poker faces, so they were currently his biggest threats. Satoko was a grinning demon, used to expressing her emotions, and Hanyuu practically radiated everything she felt, so they were not as likely to come out on top.

Rika-chan was already munching on her own breakfast with a notepad close by, cheerfully immune to any suffering the rest of them would be cast into within the next few minutes. Keiichi's eyes narrowed; perhaps that would give her an undue advantage in the next course, as she wouldn't be curled around her stomach and writhing in agony.

"Well!" Mion scoffed, snapping her chopsticks apart briskly and grinning at the meal laid out before them. "It's not gonna get eaten just by staring at it! Let's get this party started!"

The others followed her example, some with bravado, some cautiously, and Keiichi gulped again as he looked at his portion. The "tell what you ate" was such an obvious blind; it was clear that this was just an excuse for Rika-chan to feed them disgusting ingredients and watch them struggle to save face. But what to sample first…

The milk was probably alright, but he couldn't smell anything untoward from the rest of the meal, and that worried him. Cautiously, Keiichi reached for the pitcher and poured himself some, taking a sip of milk to calm his nerves.

He nearly choked as an obnoxiously salty taste assaulted his tastebuds, but managed to swallow quickly as the others looked in his direction.

"Something wrong, Kei-chan?" Shion grinned, and he managed a feral grin of his own, fingers tense around the cup, before his eyes slid to Rika, who was smirking to herself in a way rather indecent of a cherubic-looking ten-year-old.

_She put salt in the milk! No wonder I couldn't smell anything –its soluble!_

That sort of diabolical planning was par for the course with the club, and Keiichi seethed at being caught out by it so easily.

"Oh-ho-ho~! I'm glad Keiichi-san fell for such an obvious trap –it shows the rest of us what not to do!" Satoko crowed gleefully, red eyes gleaming at him. "Such a stupid mistake –why on earth would such a small pitcher of milk be used to serve all seven of us? Its _obvious_ that there's something in it we won't like, which will limit our consumption! Oh-ho-ho~!"

She cackled gleefully, and Keiichi scowled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Alright, so what?!" he barked back. "The milk's got salt in it. It's no problem! Its fine! I could eat this whole damn meal and never flinch!"

Mion laughed, and the game was on again as Rika made a single mark on her notepad.

Keiichi soon ate his words –quite literally– as he decided to commit everything to a simple strategy; scarf down everything in front of him in the hopes that the taste would not register until he had already swallowed, and get the entire charade over with in a single fell swoop.

He regretted this strategy quite fast, as a medley of different disgusting flavors met his tongue –hot, spicy, sour, salty, and bitter, and Hinamizawa's Magician of the Mouth howled in agony, a burst of steam escaping his mouth as he collapsed back onto the tatami matt, twitching vacantly with comatose eyes.

Rika made a mark on her notepad. "Keiichi's first out." she commented brightly.

The remaining combatants looked at each other uneasily, watching Keiichi quiver on the ground like a broken insect as something misty that they were _fairly_ sure looked like a chibified version of his soul hovered above his slackened mouth.

* * *

As Keiichi had predicted, it was indeed Rena who won this challenge of bluff and tells, and it was she who led the other club members outside, groaning and clutching their stomachs, minus Rika, who was all-too-cheerful at the success of her game.

"Let's get changed!" Rena chirped brightly, indicating the canvas bags everyone had brought their effects in and left by the stoop of the house, and Satoshi bent down to haul the still mostly-comatose Keiichi behind the shed, the brunet's heels dragging in the dirt and leaving two furrows behind him. Satoshi dropped him and came back for their satchels, carrying both back with him so they could change and afford the girls their privacy.

In the interests of fairness, Rena had merely told Mion that a swimsuit was necessary and made her commit to a decision _before_ telling her what kind of contest they would be staging, so therefore the club president was no more prepared than the rest of them, except for Rena herself. She, Satoko, Rika, and Hanyuu were all in their school swimsuits, while Mion had opted for her two-piece red swimsuit, and Shion her blue flower-print bikini.

The girls were just pulling on their shirts when Keiichi and Satoshi walked back around the edge of the building, both in swim trunks and sandals, with weathered T-shirts of their own. Keiichi had revived somewhat and was walking under his own power, though he still looked a bit groggy.

"Alright!" Rena giggled, skipping a little as she led them down to the bridge crossing the river near the Furude Shrine. Bugs darted around the group's faces in the humid summer heat, and so the cool breeze and the scent of water as they walked out onto the steel expansion was welcome. Rena pointed down the dark, blue-green ribbon to a place upstream.

"You guys can build and launch your rafts down there, I left a flag at the starting point. The first person to drift past the bridge right here on their raft without paddling, swimming, or helping themselves whatsoever wins!"

"So basically, we just need to craft a raft and sit on it, and let the current carry us." Satoko replied, eyes narrowed as the wind ruffled her short blonde hair.

"Exactly!" Rena chirped. "You can lay on it, or drape yourself across it, but you still have to be mostly on your raft when you cross the bridge."

"Alright!" Mion laughed, cracking her knuckles. "Bring it on, you guys!"

"Muu, w-we won't let you take our victory so easily!" Satoshi cried, clenching his fist and attempting to look intimidating as Keiichi swayed groggily beside him. He grabbed the other boy by the shoulders and bodily steered him towards the other end of the bridge, where the path that led to their assumed docking point started. "C'mon, Keiichi-san!"

* * *

Satoko studied her options carefully. The pebbly beach that led to the water was safe enough, she supposed. The problem was the actual construction of the raft itself –Rena had left them only a few coils of light rope each and a sharp, long knife. They would have to, quite literally, build their rafts from scratch, and not only must these rafts float, they must also be light enough to carry a person…and tough enough to deal with any interference from the rival players.

 _Logs_ , she decided. _Bind together logs with the rope._ They would be buoyant enough to carry her, and solid and heavy enough to stand up to all but the most determined punishment. Thus thinking, Satoko grabbed her knife and brandished it, looking around the small scrap of clear space for some proper saplings. She was too small and far too weak to chop down an actual tree, so she would have to either settle for their straighter branches or the trunks of the more slender new growths.

She spotted some delicate, thin branches over the crest of a small slope. Perfect –those would be growing from saplings of the right size.

Machete in hand, swatting a few errant bugs with her other, Satoko climbed through the undergrowth, well aware that time was a problem as well as the proficiency of her craftmanship –she could build a _sea-worthy_ raft, probably, given enough time, but there _wasn't_ any time. She needed to build her raft and get it out on the water before any of the others, because then her victory was practically assured. It didn't matter if she built the slowest raft in existence, if she got it out when everyone else was still fumbling for raw material, the sheer _size_ of her head start would bring her triumph, in the end.

The saplings were birch, white and slender, and Satoko knelt beside the nearest one, starting to hack at the base with her knife. Even with her childlike strength, it only took a dozen chops before the sapling was severed from its base, and Satoko gripped and lifted it briefly, testing how heavy her new log was.

Not bad. She could probably carry two or three.

She shimmied to the side, and a few quick scrapes with the knife rid her of any dragging, trailing branches, and she got to work on the next trunk. Before long, Satoko had a decent pile of about six or seven trunks, with the accompanying litter of discarded branches and leaf debris, and she exhaled in satisfaction, wiping some sweat off her brow with the back of her wrist. Grabbing as many trunks as she could lift –four– Satoko began to haul them laboriously back to the beach.

When she got there, it was clear what everyone else's plan of attack was. Keiichi and Shion, with their wretched high-end urban education, were clearly copying designs taught to them in class –while Satoko was merely going to construct a simple square raft, they were both obviously trying to craft more streamlined designs in the same method. Time would tell whether or not the increased construction time would be balanced by the swifter movement in the water.

With Keiichi, probably not. He seemed more focused on his design _appearing_ functional than _being_ functional, and Satoko quietly but smugly edged him out of her mental check of the race. Form was not more important than function, and focusing on the latter was a sure way to lose this game.

Mion, on the other hand, seemed to be trying for something similar to Satoko, but her tree trunks were thicker, and she seemed to be planning to layer them in a grid, for greater durability. Satoko would have to watch out for that.

Rika was also very clearly going for the streamline design, with a raft longer than it was wide –if Satoko was reading her right, the blue-haired _miko_ was planning to construct something similar to a surfboard, something she could float upon on her belly and slide through the water with. Another design to be wary of.

Hanyuu, somehow and strangely, was weaving branches of a plant Satoko didn't directly recognize into a circular shape, apparently planning to create a raft like a dish. Satoko didn't understand the logic behind such a decision, and was therefor also wary of it

Yes, Hanyuu and Rika would be her main concerns here –the older club members may have more craft and guile, but the three who shared Rika's house had one thing in common: they were all much smaller, and required smaller rafts and less cumbersome materials to keep them floating. The three of them would all likely be launching at the same time, or near it, and their designs would be so different that it was hard to say which one would have the most immediate head start.

Satoko turned her head to cast a concerned eye on her brother. Satoshi was working patiently, and seemed to be crafting a raft halfway between hers and Rika's –long and thin, but with longer logs bound together with rope, rather than Rika's series of short, flat ones. That would be something to watch out for, too.

The blonde trap-master focused back on her work, smirking in anticipation. The raft wasn't the only thing she was planning to make for this race, oh no.

* * *

Satoshi swallowed nervously as he dragged his finished raft to the water's edge, pushing it in carefully. It floated, which was one goal accomplished, and he quickly followed the wooden construct into the shallows, grabbing the rough edges of the outermost logs and laying himself stomach-down on his craft as the current began to tug it forward. He would feel pretty stupid if he lost because his raft ran away from him.

Keiichi-san was the only one behind him, now –all the others had already launched their rafts, with Rika-chan, Satoko, and Hanyuu-chan starting off first. Since Shion and Mion-san had started off somewhat earlier than he had, Satoshi calmly folded his arms, resting his chin on them and relaxing as the current carried the raft. The wet, green, growing scent of the river surrounded him, the birds twittering in the trees alongside the banks and the irritating gnats and suchlike banished to the water's edge. The sun was warm on his back, the water cool, not cold, and everything was peaceful.

If this wasn't a race, he might have dozed.

There was a splash behind him at some slight distance, proving that the last club member had entered the race, and Satoshi raised his head a little, looking ahead. He could just spot Mion and Shion's backs, nearing a curve in the river.

Well, there wasn't anything he could do…now…

Satoshi blinked as Keiichi passed by him, a clumsy T-bar of logs fastened to his raft, and from it hung…his shirt?

Yes, Keiichi had removed his shirt and was floating bare-chested down the river, using his shirt like a sail and grinning madly at Satoshi as he passed by!

"See you on the flip side, loser!" the brunet crowed triumphantly as he floated ahead, and Satoshi shrugged and nestled his chin back down into his folded arms. If he lost he lost –Satoshi's raft was too small and thin to support him sitting up on it at all: the only thing he could do to increase his speed was straighten his feet so they didn't drag in the water behind him, and since the current was coming from behind, having some drag was actually beneficial, because it gave the water something to push against.

There were shrieks from up ahead, and the two boys blinked as they neared the bend in the river.

"Oh my god –look, there's a trap!"

"Go back! Go back! Its – _ack!_ "

The second cry was cut off with a _splash_ , and Keiichi and Satoshi looked at each other uneasily. But it was too late to think of whatever vague retreat they could accomplish –they had rounded the bend in the river, and Satoshi was just in time to see Mion squirm strangely on her raft, something white and thin bobbing alongside her, then fumble and drop off with another splash. Her head popped above the water as her raft floated some distance down the stream, scowling in disgust.

Then Satoshi saw the trap.

Someone –no prizes for guessing who– had saved some of their rope and made a lasso, which they had swung across the river and caught tightly on a branch, then somehow fixed to the other side of the bank. Knowing Satoko, she'd probably tied some logs together in an X to form a rough grapple and made sure to catch it between some rocks.

The end result was a cord stretched diagonally across the river at roughly navel-height for the kneeling club members, and it had unseated both Mion and Shion, the younger twin currently swimming for her remote raft, already some distance down the river.

Keiichi looked in both directions frantically, but there was no way to duck under the trap. In a last-ditch attempt, as the current swept him closer to his doom, he reached out and grabbed the string, trying to pull it up and over his makeshift sail, but alas, too late. The string caught near the top, and the slow inevitable force of the current overset the raft and dunked Keiichi, just as it had dunked the two Sonozaki siblings.

Satoshi, lying flat, passed right under the rope easily. He wondered for a moment, as Keiichi flailed and spluttered to the surface, if that had been intentional on Satoko's part, and paused to give Shion a sympathetic wave as he floated by her frantic attempts to remount her raft without using the distant bottom of the river or by delaying her time in getting to a bank.

Thus Satoshi moved up to the middle of the race.

The cries of Keiichi, Shion, and Mion became fainter as he floated on, and Satoshi was fairly sure that he heard several more splashes, as if they were engaging in some creative interference on each other by themselves. That would only further the distance between them, though, as the trio focused on petty revenge and unseating their rivals instead of getting ahead –and so Satoshi floated on, unconcerned, and feeling pretty good about his chances to win, or at least, not come in last.

He drifted on the river current for a little while longer –enough to privately vow to do this again sometime, under less strenuous circumstances and on a more comfortable raft– before the river curved again, the current rushing a little faster as the water was forced around a sharp turn. His goal lay before him, the distant line of the suspension bridge crossing the river as a thin grey smudge. Lighter, higher shrieks and triumphant laughter carried back to him over the water's surface, and he could spot three indistinct splotches of color, much closer, on the river. Satoko's diabolic cackling in particular was distinctive, and Satoshi sighed through his nose as there was a despairing cry and a _splash_. What was his sister getting into now?

Apparently, he saw as he floated closer, Satoko's bag of tricks had not ended with the tripwire. She had somehow gotten clods of dirt –not hard enough to injure, but certainly heavy and dense enough to hurt a little when thrown and do damage to rafts– in a rough-woven basket on her raft and was throwing them gleefully at both Rika and Hanyuu…at least in theory, because it seemed as though Hanyuu's frantic attempts to dodge had overset her own raft, and the small lilac-haired Furude was paddling with her raft over to the bank, "hauhauhau"ing her distress all the way.

"Mew, Satoko, no fair!" Rika cried petulantly, arms over her head, as Satoko bombarded her with pellets, her raft slowing a little as she wiggled to try and avoid them.

"Club Rule Number Two: _You are required to put forth all your effort into getting first place, no matter what!_ " Satoko replied with a wicked grin as she floated closer, reaching out and overturning the raft as Rika squealed and spluttered.

Satoshi sank lower on his raft and guiltily attempted to look inconspicuous as he floated past Hanyuu, who had by now managed to kneel again on her dish-shaped raft and continue forward.

Rika surfaced again and spat out a stream of water –directly at Satoko– before shaking her wet curtain of hair out of her face and paddling towards her best friend, vengeance in her innocently-gleaming violet eyes.

"Rika –Rika, no, don't you dare-!" Satoko squeaked as the _miko_ swam closer, grinning evilly as her blonde friend gulped. "Rikaaaaaaa!"

Satoko wailed as her own raft was overset by a strong push from below, surfacing with a splash as she immediately swept her hand out, flicking a wave of water at her best friend.

"How dare you!"

Rika and Satoko promptly began a splash-fight, either ignoring or not cognizant of Satoshi and his raft as he quietly floated by, instead too focused on making the other pay for their overset.

"Hau, and serves you right." Hanyuu said primly as she drifted by the two, and then squealed as they exchanged a glance and promptly overset her as well, splashing the lilac-haired goddess for good measure when she came up, spluttering.

Satoshi blinked and turned his head a little as he floated onwards, leaving the trio several dozen yards behind him. Wasn't he…in first now?

Let's see, Keiichi-san, Mion-san, Shion, Satoko, Hanyuu-chan, Rika-chan…yes, he was in first.

_Huh._

Satoshi shrugged quietly to himself and settled down against his raft, lowering his eyes and sleepily gazing out at the world as he quietly drifted towards the bridge.

* * *

"The winner of the River-Raft Pooh Sticks competition is…Satoshi Hojo!" Rena announced happily, blinking a little as she looked over the others, who were all in varying stages of dripping wet and grumpy about it, while Satoshi, standing at her side, was the only one who was but mildly damp. "Did you guys have fun?"

"Muu, it was very relaxing." Satoshi answered with a gentle smile, while the others glared viciously at his grinning younger sister.

"I'll get you for this, Satokooooo!" Keiichi, as usual, was less than subtle, and lunged for the small cackling blonde, hands upraised into tickle-ready claws as he chased her around the pebbly beach underneath the suspension bridge.

"Ah, but Keiichi-san, if you get me, then who will give us all your new challenge?" Satoko squealed gleefully as she and Keiichi circled cartoonishly in a run around a dizzy-looking Hanyuu.

"Alright, enough of that." Shion huffed a moment after, grabbing Keiichi by the collar of his transparently wet T-shirt and bringing him to a choking halt.

"Yeah, save your energy for the next game, Kei-chan." Mion added, wringing out her long tail of wet hair.

"Indeed!" Satoko skidded to a halt and turned around, flinging out her arm dramatically as her eyes gleamed with evil intent. "For the next challenge was submitted by none other than me, Satoko Hojo –Mountain Capture-the-Flag!"

The club members calmed and gathered, Rena moving to take her place with the others as Satoko was left standing alone, facing the group.

"This is but a simple, ordinary game of Capture the Flag." the young trap-master began, though her wicked grin belied the words as she rubbed her hands together diabolically. "Hosted on my very own mountain, your objective is utterly basic –be the first person to grab the golden flag which I, Satoko Hojo, have hidden somewhere on my mountain. For this game there are no official teams, and the rules are as simple as the game itself: find the flag, which is indisputably on my mountain, and the first person to do so is the winner! The simplest game of all, today!"

The entire club deadpanned as she ended her speech and beamed, a cloud of gloom soaking over them.

The amount of traps Satoko had waiting for them must be absolutely legendary.

* * *

A short hike later, and they were at the place Satoko had deemed fit for a starting location, changed out of their swimsuits, inasmuch as they had put more substantial clothing over them –no one trusted Satoko not to have a water-based trap lurking somewhere about on the mountain currently looming above them.

"I will be supervising your efforts through binoculars on the roof of that shed over there, and the game will be ended by a whistle blown by me, followed by another rocket for those of you who don't hear." Satoko began pompously, gesturing to the small shack they all remembered from their efforts against the Wild Dogs and Takano. She reached up and patted Kasai, who had met them here in canvas trousers and a green T-shirt, along with his usual treasured dark sunglasses –there was something amusing in the image of the tiny blonde girl so condescendingly patting such an imposing-looking bodyguard at the easiest place for her to reach, which was about his knee. "Kasai-san has kindly volunteered to be your supervisor for the duration of this match. Should you encounter any, heh, _difficulties_ that you are unable to get out of, Kasai-san will meet you and blindfold you, then take you back to the starting point here. Any questions?"

"Can I get some hints from you?" Shion asked her bodyguard, wiggling her brows coyly.

"Regrettably not, Shion-san." he answered, stoic-faced. "Hojo-san has instructed me most stringently to not give any of you aid beyond that of rescuing you from her traps –and she was very specific about providing any outside assistance to you in particular, Shion-san."

"Boo, boo! Kasai, you're such a spoilsport! Why can't you cheat and give me a leg up?" Shion whined, sticking her tongue out at him. The mustachioed guard did not dignify her response with a reply.

"Alright then! Kasai-san and I will make our way up the mountain, and after I shoot off the starter's rocket, you can begin your path down to hell!" Satoko chirped, her red eyes glinting demonically as she grinned. She then reached up and took some of Kasai's fingers in her smaller hand. "C'mon, Kasai-san, and remember to step where I tell you."

The two made their way up the mountain along the path, and the club members were left to strategizing. Rena eyed her friends sidelong –she was pretty sure that Keiichi would be knocked out of the running fast, what with being so susceptible to Satoko's traps ordinarily, even outside of the advanced ones on her mountain. Shion and Rika, especially, she would have to watch out for –they knew Satoko best, and Shion, whatever Satoko might have ordered, may just receive extra help from Kasai anyways, even if it was something as mild as him hastening to her aid more quickly than the others.

She wondered how adorable the flag would be, and a certain powerful gleam began to light Rena's sparkling blue eyes.

"Man, I wonder what the other villagers will think of our signal-" Keiichi began, folding his arms behind his head, but cut himself short as there was a shriek of tortured air, and a bottle-rocket soared up from near the shack, exploding in the air with a sharp pop.

"That's our cue to start –let's go!" Mion cried, waving her arm forward as she and the others charged recklessly into the forest, and were swallowed up by its branches.

* * *

Ten minutes into the game by Kasai-san's watch, which he had generously left with her on the roof, Satoko watched through her binoculars, eyes gleaming avidly, as the pitiful fools swarmed over her mountain, like fat flies blundering into a spiderweb. Predictably, Keiichi-san was the first to fall, and had the blonde rolling around on the rooftop with giggles as she watched his expression –as Kasai, needing to guide the victims blindfolded, simply opted for sweeping the younger brunet up in his arms and walking back to the start with Keiichi-san held bridal-style, and the discomfited, embarrassed expression that Keiichi-san had on even underneath the blindfold made Satoko laugh hysterically.

Rena was making good headway, but even she failed to navigate the bamboo maze of traps Satoko had left out along the eastern slope, a trap which had already claimed both Mion and Hanyuu –soon all three hung gloomily in the air, waiting for Kasai to rescue them. Satoko waited until he deposited the sulking Keiichi-san at the start before radioing in their location, and then resumed her surveillance. Rika was threading the needle up the mountain, using a surprising memory of Satoko's preferred patterns and methods of safe-pathing to cautiously worm her way upwards, meter by meter. Ni-Ni was stewing sadly in a mudpit trap she had left out, somewhat lower down than Rika but higher up than Mion, Hanyuu, and Rena. And Shion…

Satoko paused, and swept her binoculars around some more, her eyebrows squinting into a furrow.

Where _was_ Shion?

* * *

Shion, creeping through the underbrush behind Rika-chama, was being clever –or so she had figured. After all, who knew Satoko-chan the best? Rika Furude. Satoshi knew his sister well, of course, but he had only recently gotten out of the hospital, and Rika-chama had been living with Satoko for years and been friends with her for even longer beforehand. Rika-chama would know the most about Satoko's preferred traps and what patterns, if any, the devious blonde laid out. However, since this _was_ the God-Sent Master of Traps, Satoko Hojo, it was beyond likely that Rika-chama would, eventually, fall victim to one of the many traps lying in wait around the mountain.

And since Shion was right behind Rika-chama, faithfully copying her every step, Shion would benefit from that mistake, whereas Rika-chama would be taken all the way back down the mountain in disgrace.

They both seemed to have the same goal in mind: to get to the shack where Satoko was holding court. After all, the rest of the club knew by experience that it was the best vantage point on the mountain, and Satoko as a matter of course would want to keep an eye on the fateful flag while also cackling at the misfortune of her victims –Rika-chama was taking the safe course, that of rather than wandering all over the trap-infested mountain, make her way to a key vantage point and work onwards from there with a clear goal in mind.

Shion's goal, of course, was to follow in Rika-chama's footsteps and wait for her to misstep, then carefully proceed onwards, likely with a stick of some sort in hand to test the ground ahead of her.

And sure enough, soon Rika-chama was clasped tight in some sort of mattress-pitfall, and Shion sunk down into the bushes, hiding herself best she could as she waited for Kasai to show up. If this were the only safe path along the traps in this area, she would have to risk moving aside when she heard him coming…

Crackles in the undergrowth.

Shion slowly sunk down a little more, making sure to keep her movements subtle and as minute as possible. Her green hair did help her blend in rather well, after all. Crouched on her haunches, she waited for Kasai, one hand splayed against the dusty mountain grass as she listened with all her might.

He was coming from the right –excellent, that was the same rough trajectory as the small shack.

"Mew, I guess I messed up." Rika-chama chirped regretfully from beyond Shion's line of vision as the rope she hung from creaked a little, Kasai's footsteps almost on top of them.

"Indeed. Please exercise patience, Furude-san, and I will have you down shortly." her bodyguard replied gravely, and Shion heard the snick of his pocketknife being flicked open. There was a slight twang as he sliced the rope (and in all likelihood, caught Rika-chama in the same movement) and the branch that had held the trap sprung back to its original position, and Shion mentally rubbed her hands in glee, squirming a little to peer through the gaps in the bushes around her.

As expected, Kasai had Rika-chama safely in his arms, and even cradled her one-handed with ease as he calmly replaced the pocketknife in his canvas trousers and pulled out a blindfold in its stead. "Please put this on, Furude-san, and I will take you back to the start point."

"Mew, guess I can't see the safe path, huh?" Rika-chama agreed with a theatrical sigh, taking the blindfold from his hand and putting it on obediently. A radio, secured on Kasai's hip, buzzed suddenly, and he again cradled Rika-chama's tiny body with one arm as he reached down and activated it.

"Yes, Hojo-san?"

_"Oh-ho-ho~! Keiichi-san has gotten himself stuck in another trap, Kasai-san! That's the second one in twenty minutes, the pitiful fool!"_

"I see. I shall be there shortly, as I must deliver Furude-san to the base of the mountain." Kasai replied calmly, his deep voice even. "Please be patient, and I will be able to hear the location from you soon."

He turned to leave, and Shion froze –even more– as his gaze swept the undergrowth. She didn't _think_ he could see her, but then again, Kasai _was_ one of the elite of the Sonozaki forces, so it figured he'd be good at spotting people hiding like this…

Footsteps crunched away. He hadn't seen her…or if he had, he was keeping quiet about it.

A devious smile curled Shion's pale lips. Despite Satoko's orders, it seemed as though fortune –and Shion's butler/bodyguard– was favoring her.

* * *

"Cheating! Cheating cheating cheating _cheating!_ " Keiichi roared, flapping his arms angrily as Shion grinned at him, the shining golden flag gripped securely in her hands.

"Nope~!" the younger twin grinned, flashing him a peace sign with her other hand. "I won fair and square, you know~?"

"LIAR!" the disheveled brunet bellowed, making Rena jump, the mud caking her body flaking a little with the suddenness of her movement.

Every club member –minus Shion– was in varying stages of unkempt as they stood there at the outcrop near the Furude shrine, ranging from Mion, whose hair was merely snarled with twigs and leaves and her pants bearing a few smudges from dirty ropes, to Hanyuu, who was covered head-to-foot in mud and paint and with several small rips in her clothes. Keiichi had several thorns and burrs tangled into his shorts and shirt, which no doubt explained the sudden bite of his temper.

"Don't you think its _slightly_ suspicious that Shion won in a game chosen by Satoko-chan and marshaled by Kasai-san?" Keiichi added desperately, jabbing a finger at the grinning Sonozaki as he looked around for support.

"Muu, I think its fair." Satoshi shrugged, scratching a few flakes of paint away from his cheek from a paintball trap.

"Shi-chan didn't get any help from Kasai-san though, did she? Did she?" Rena asked, tilting her head, and all eyes turned to the impeccably outfitted outdoor marshal for their contest.

"I exchanged no information with Shion-san in any way, shape, or form during this contest, or beforehand regarding this contest, except the conversation which was witnessed by all of you at the beginning of the game." Kasai responded promptly, adjusting his black glasses with a single finger. "I did not even see her for the duration of the game until its end."

Shion's smirk widened, and she brandished her glittering trophy at the others smugly. "So then! That's one victory for me, one for Satoshi-kun, and one for Rena-chan! Honestly, the rest of you should really step up your efforts~!"

"Gaaaaaah! You just wait, Shion!" Keiichi roared, fire flashing in his eyes and darting from his mouth. "I'll get you the next round!"

Shion grinned. "Oh, I don't think so, Kei-chan. For you see…"

She clapped her hands twice, and Kasai, dutiful as ever, grabbed a small cooler from near the stone benches and dragged it over.

"The next contest is one of my own design! Here within this frigid cooler lies seven T-shirts, soaked with water and stored in the Sonozaki freezer these past three days! It is your challenge, now, to grab one, get it on, and run all the way to the school, and the first one to make it back to the shrine here, wins! Simple enough for everyone."

Keiichi paused, rubbing his chin. "When you say get the T-shirt on, like it's a challenge…"

Shion grinned wider, baring teeth. "Why yes, Kei-chan. The T-shirts are, indeed, frozen pretty much solid. Have fun~!"

* * *

"Ggh!" Angrily, Keiichi beat his stiffly-frozen T-shirt against the wooden railing of the outcrop near the shrine, grunting with the effort of trying to soften it up. Mion was whacking hers against the stone benches with the same determination, while Satoshi and Rena seemed to have opted for wrapping their arms around the frozen white boards and hugging them, trying to warm the glittering fabric with their body heat. Rika, Hanyuu, and Satoko had gone off somewhere else to try a different strategy, of which he knew nothing.

Bare-chested, Keiichi occasionally paused to press the ice-cold fabric against his sweaty skin, a bone-chilling shudder sliding through him at the frozen contact against his flesh.

Oh, this would be a very cold race.

Finally, he had managed to beat off enough ice crystals, and the sun and his own heat had warmed it enough, that the fabric was roughly pliable, and huffing and struggling, Keiichi pulled the white shirt over his head, shuddering at the icy touch as goosebumps erupted across his skin. Mion, too, had thumped hers into submission, and strained to pull it over her head and down her chest.

Down her very…curvaceous, chest.

Keiichi coughed and looked the other way. This was going to be a challenging race, in more ways than one.

Sure enough, halfway down the steps, Keiichi found his prediction to be correct –this was going to be a very, very tough race, for him, specifically. There were two very attractive young ladies running the race with him, two young ladies with bosom sizes ranging from modest to bounteous, and they were only wearing swimsuits underneath these frozen, white T-shirts, and the ice was slowly melting, turning the white fabric transparent and, moreover, making it cling to their youthful curves, with water droplets rolling down their athletic legs…

"Gah!" Too distracted with his competitors to focus, the teen boy tripped and rolled head-over-heels down the stone steps, ending up faceplanting on the dusty ground at the very bottom as his legs were flung upwards and then fell flat, the twitching brunet belly-down on the ground.

"Kei-chan! You okay?!" Mion asked in concern from a slight distance as she jogged down the steps, and he raised a vague hand and waved it dizzily.

"No, no, I'm good…" Keiichi mumbled, not looking up or even moving his face from the ground, afraid that the girls would see his flushed grin and the blood dripping thickly from his completely undamaged nose.

Above near the shrine, Shion smirked and made a note on the clipboard she had borrowed from Mion.

_Kei-chan –first out. Cause of eventual elimination: Perversity of Thoughts._

* * *

As it turned out, Rika was the winner –with the ingenuity to melt her T-shirt over the stove, and the speed of feet to outrun Satoko and Hanyuu, who had the same idea. There was a slight pause, what with the sun now high in the sky, to fix any wardrobe issues born from Satoko's traps in her earlier contest, before Mion plucked another, larger basket from the redoubtable Kasai and led them all to the grassy space by the shrine.

"Alright!" the green-haired leader swung around, brandishing her enormous basket at the group. "I've heard some growling stomachs from the rest of you, and its already just around noon, so now is as good a time as any to start this trial –the Picnic Basket Relay! Hosted and participated-in by me, teams of two will rush to set up a full picnic –blanket, plates, silverware, and food– and take it back down again, timed by Kasai over there." She gestured to the mustachioed Sonozaki guard, who now held a pocketwatch timer on a cord and Mion's clipboard from the sunrise earlier. "The fastest team to do so is our winner! The slowest team to do so is, with all the others, our losers, however, this team will also be the ones to clean everything up after the rest of us are done!"

Rena giggled and rubbed her hands. "This sounds like its going to be a fun competition, it does!"

"Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko giggled behind her hand, sending a sly glance towards Keiichi. "Will poor Keiichi-san be able to keep from being our nursemaid? After all, he's come in last in nearly every game so far~!"

"Poor, poor Keiichi-san." Rika chirped gleefully from beside her. "Doomed to be a frilly-dressed maid and a loser forever, mew."

"Screw that!" Keiichi snorted at them, and wiped the lingering traces of blood off his nose, before crackling his knuckles, periwinkle eyes shining with determination. "What are the teams, Mion? I'll crush anyone who stands in my way!"

The club leader smirked and rolled her shoulders a little, before setting the basket down on the ground. "I like your spirit, Kei-chan! First off, it's you and me, Kei-chan. Second, Shion and Satoshi-kun. Then Rena and Hanyuu-chan, and finally Satoko-chan and Rika-chan. Does that arrangement sound fair to everyone?"

"Sounds great." Keiichi said, eyes gleaming as he sent a sly grin of his own towards the others. Rena intercepted it with a bloodthirsty smirk of her own, and Satoko cackled as menacingly as she ever did, rubbing her small hands together. After all, the longer each team had to wait, the more methods and shortcuts they could study and implement on their own.

"Mion-san, when you are ready." Kasai rumbled from near the verge, nodding towards the large basket. Mion nodded back, and she and Keiichi took their positions as the others quieted and, hawklike, fixed their eyes on the first members to run the gauntlet.

"On you mark. Get set. Go!" the Sonozaki guard announced loudly, and Mion whipped the lid up in an explosion of movement, diving her hand recklessly fast into the basket and coming out with the faded blanket in hand. With an expertly-placed snap of her wrist, she sent the worn fabric out as the cloudy pink blanket unfolded, billowing, and knelt just as quickly to set the corners as it rustled to the ground. Mion plunged both hands into the basket again, coming out with the plates.

"Sonozaki Dish Diagonal!" she cried with a determined glint to her eyes, twirling and flicking her arms out in a move very reminiscent of anime combat arts as the heavy-duty ceramic plates flew out and skidded into place on the flattened blanket.

"Demon Chopstick Rain!"

"Goblet of Fire!"

"Feast of Furudes!"

Within five minutes of nigh-on impossible martial antics, a panting Mion stood over the spoils of battle –in other words, the more-or-less-perfectly set picnic, spinning on her heel to slap her hand against Keiichi's in a high-five, tagging out as she stumbled a little and moved to sit down.

"R-right!" Keiichi cried, rushing forward to undo Mion's hard work. He grabbed the tupperware the food had been stored in and began scooping various dishes back into their containers, piling them rapidly into stacks on the inside of the basket. With slightly more exaggeration in his movements, he began a similar sequence to Mion's, his periwinkle eyes flashing like a demon's as he moved across the picnic field of battle in a blur of movement.

"Maebara Mop-Up!" the brunet cried, sweeping the plates into a stack, similar to how one would, say, sweep up a clutter of painting pallets from a distracted parent for the dishwasher.

"Paintbrush Clenched-Fist!" he roared, raking his hand across the blanket in a flash as he gathered up the chopsticks, flinging them carelessly into the basket.

"Cosmos Can Carry!"

"Canvas Retrieval!"

Kasai clicked the timer as Keiichi slammed the basket shut with somewhat undue force. "8 minutes and 12 seconds." he announced in his deep voice, and the exhausted Mion and Keiichi looked at each other and grinned, high-fiving again. The bodyguard's glasses-hidden eyes raked the field, landing on his young charge and her partner. "Next is Shion-san and Hojo-kun, correct?"

* * *

Shion and Satoshi squeaked in at 8 minutes and 58 seconds, which was neither fast enough to give them victory nor, as they watched Hanyuu and Rena start off, slow enough to assure their fates as the after-picnic cleanup.

 _Definitely_ not in line to be the cleaners, what with how Hanyuu and Rena started.

"Hau, hauhauhau, Rena-san, let go!" Hanyuu squealed, wriggling in Rena's grip as the ecstatic older girl charged down the stone steps to the shrine, Kasai in hot pursuit (timer in hand) with the rest of the club not far behind. Apparently, Hanyuu's panicked expression and flustered movements as she frantically arranged the picnic were enough to trigger Rena's dreaded Take It Home Mode, and thus the worriedly-squealing shrine maiden was tucked under the happily-squealing auburn-haired teen's arm as Rena ran headlong back to her house –all the way across the village. "We still have to finish setting the picniiiiiiiiic!"

"Awwww, you're so cute! Adorable! I'm taking you home~!" Rena sang happily, her blue eyes gleaming with a manic shine as she hurled down the steps.

"5 minutes 23 seconds." Kasai announced, deadpan, as he glanced down at the timer in his hands, still running, legs pumping, after the fleeing teen. "I recommend you return to your task soon, Ryugu-san, or else you will slip into last place."

"No way~! I'm taking Hanyuu-chan home with meeeeee~!"

* * *

"18 minutes 29 seconds." Kasai told the group, barely breathing heavily despite the exhausted club sprawled across the clearing, as Rena hung, pouting and whining, in the makeshift lasso Satoko had hastily formed and then slung over a thick branch in one of the nearby trees after they'd caught her.

"Hauuuu, Rena-san, how could you!" Hanyuu whimpered, tears gushing from her eyes. "Now we'll be in last place and have to clean everything up!"

"Aw, I wanted to take Hanyuu-chan home with me…" Rena whimpered up above with crocodile tears in her blue eyes, either uncaring or oblivious to the plight of her partner.

"Next is Rika-chama and Hojo-san." Kasai interrupted brusquely, turning his gaze to the two youngest members of the group.

* * *

Though the two girls put in a valiant effort, coming in at 8 minutes and 37 seconds, Mion and Keiichi were still the clear winners, and they celebrated with the typical exuberance of the Hinamizawa Club, while Kasai unbent enough to accept some pickles and juice of his own.

"I am given to understand you do not need my services for the rest of the day, Mion-san?" he asked respectfully between bites, and Mion nodded, swallowing her hamburger steak.

"I can judge the last few games that I submitted, they don't need a supervisor." she agreed as she came up for air, flicking casually with her chopsticks. "It's all objective –counting how many of such-and-so everybody got. Thanks for spotting in for me for these last two games, though."

"It is my honor and privilege to serve the Sonozaki family in any capacity I can." Kasai responded calmly, his somber business demeanor somewhat offset by his khaki trousers, green shirt, and the flower-patterned plate that held the scanty gleanings he'd begrudgingly accepted from the club members.

The club members all laughed at the contrast of images, and continued chattering, bantering on the losses of each member so far, boasting of the achievement a few of them had gained, tallying up the leaderboards so far, and eagerly planning for the games to come, the adventures for tomorrow and all the days after. The merry chattering continued as Rena and Hanyuu wearily packed away the dirty dishes and so on in the hamper, and even down the steps, as Mion led her companions towards the now-abandoned school, parting from Kasai by his car, which had been waiting on the shoulder of the road nearest to the shrine this entire time.

He bowed goodbye, and the group, once again clad in swimsuits underneath clean white T-shirts, marched towards the school, where several bucketfuls of water balloons waited, a plump array of jelly-colored plastic missiles lying in ominous wait for their victims.

"Alright, now remember the rules!" Mion cried, kicking her foot up onto the edge of one of the bins, near the outdoor school faucets. "This is a free-for-all, a battle royal with no holds barred and no teams! You can grab any water balloons you want, as many as you want, as often as you want! There are no safe zones, and you cannot leave school grounds! One hit does not constitute an out –we are in play until the end of this kitchen clock right here." She pointed to the innocuous-looking timer set out on the concrete lip of the facilities. It was set for one hour. "At the end of the time, everyone congregates back here, and whoever has the _least_ amount of water on them –whoever's driest– is our undisputed champion! Now, any questions before we begin?"

"Are you ready to _lose?_ " Keiichi sneered, rubbing his hands together, and Mion barked out a laugh.

"I was about to say the same to you, Kei-chan!"

"Bring it on, Onee!"

"Rena's really excited for this, she is!"

"Oh-ho-ho~! You are pitiful fools indeed to set this contest within the school grounds that I know so intimately!"

"Muu, I've never played this before…"

And so lusty and furious battle was joined.

* * *

An explosion of warm liquid splattered the ground, and Hanyuu fell back with a hair-raising shriek, a wet patch growing on her chest as her limp body flopped down onto the war-torn ground, droplets flying everywhere.

"Hauhauhau, no fair!" the Furude maiden wept in the dust of the schoolyard, her chubby cheeks puffing out as she rolled over and hastily scampered behind a low wall. "No fair, no fair!"

"All's fair in love and war!" Satoko cried triumphantly, before bending down and loading one of her catapults with another squishy water missile as she cackled, and across the yard, Shion ducked out of Rika's range, the _miko_ ensconced firmly on a stack of barrels as she bombarded her opponent with a carefully-coordinated barrage of balloons.

__

Satoshi was getting his belated exercise in, not even trying to hit anyone back –not even carrying any water balloons– as he jumped, ran, and slid across the schoolyard, proving to everyone why the Hinamizawa Fighters had held him in such esteem. A long stay as a coma patient did not seem to detract from his muscle memory at all, though the same could not be said for his strength and stamina –the young blond was winded easily, and his stamina was low, forcing him to frequently duck behind hiding places as Mion, in hot pursuit, peppered the ground behind him with water balloons.

__

Keiichi and Rena…well, it was a good thing that Rika was occupied with Shion, because if she had seen the two flinging water balloons at each other, a hoard of the squishy missiles held in a schoolbag bouncing on both combatant's hips, on top of the school roof –a battle measured by an hour-long timer, no less– it was fairly likely that the young miko would have had a déjà vu-based heart attack.

__

"You cannot win, Rena!" Keiichi howled, charging down the slope of the baking metal roof as he hurled a water balloon. She dodged, and the fragile plastic split open upon its violent impact with the roof, spilling tepid water across the roof as the hot metal sizzled and hissed.

__

"Tough words from the club's most heavy loser, Keiichi-kun!" she shot back, replying with a missile of her own in kind.

__

The two teens jumped and slid and ran up and down the roof, bodies moving athletically as they spun and twisted to avoid the rainbow storm of pastel-colored balloons each flung at the other, spitting barbs and insults and banter just as thick and fast as their watery missiles. (Rika _definitely_ would have had a terrifying flashback to _Atonement_ , if she would but just look up.)

__

Keiichi's shirt clung to his heaving chest, sweat and water making it stick to his skin, and the entire left side of Rena's hair stuck to her cheek in dripping spikes and strands, from a lucky near-face shot from her brunet partner earlier.

__

Thus the lusty and furious battle continued.

__

* * *

__

At the end of the stipulated hour, the club gathered again, all in various stages of soaking wet. Keiichi and Rena, their supplies of missiles exhausted from their valiant duel atop the school roof, were absolutely _drenched_ , to the point where their sneakers squeaked and squelched as they walked. Rika was drier, but her entire back was soaked from when she had seen Satoko's barrage coming and quickly turned away to protect her face, the young _miko's_ long blue hair a wet curtain that clung to her back and arms with her every movement. Satoshi had the misfortune to run into not only Mion but also _Shion's_ ambush at one point, and was dripping wet from the waist up, though not overly concerned about being so. The twins, in turn, had engaged in a furious competition of their own, and were nearly as wet as Rena and Keiichi.

__

It was Satoko, who had only sustained a few errant blows from those bold enough to test her defenses (and garner her attentions), who was the clear winner in this contest, a fact she did not cease rubbing in as the club waited for Mion to fetch blankets once more.

__

"Alright, so…this is my contest." Satoshi began vaguely as the dripping club leader squelched back with four blankets, likely pilfered from the Sonozaki family's shed. "We have the same partners as the picnic relay, I guess, and one of you gets on the blanket and the other drags them up to the shrine and then back here. You can't progress any farther if the person on the blanket leaves the blanket –you have to go back to where they fell off and make them get on again before you can move forward. Whoever gets back here first wins."

__

Everyone looked at him, and sighed exasperatedly a little.

__

"So then…any questions?" Mion asked with a tentative grin, clapping her hands together.

__

"Sounds pretty straightforward." Keiichi answered for everyone with a shrug, scratching the back of his dripping hair. He glanced at Satoshi. "Who goes on the blanket?"

__

"Muu…I guess the teams figure that out between themselves. Would you like to do it, Shion, or should I?"

__

* * *

__

As it turned out, a good few minutes were spent arguing between each time about who was going to be bruised and dragged about on the blanket, and only the fact that Rika and Hanyuu agreed to be the blanket-layer to Satoko's and Rena's blanket-bearer within a few moments kept the arguments from continuing for ten minutes or more. Satoshi, who had been disputing with Shion about the advisability of him dragging anyone anywhere, was pushed down on the blanket, and Mion, disdaining subtlety, had gaped at the retreating backs of Rena and Satoko, and then judo-flipped Keiichi onto their blanket with a cry.

__

At first, the race was fairly normal, so far as such races went, with the blanket-runners dragging their passengers behind them and the passengers curled up into fetal balls, typically with one arm around the head and the other keeping their purchase on the blanket. Occasionally a runner would lag, hitching up and reaffirming their or their passenger's grip on the blanket, but otherwise the teams seemed to be fairly even as they ran across the Hinamizawa roads and their partners bumped along behind them.

__

It got challenging as the road skittered off, and the scrub-laden forest began.

__

It got worse at the river.

__

Rena barely broke pace at the head of the pack, turning to scoop Hanyuu up, blanket and all, before she charged across the shallow ford, and the others were quick to follow suit, some with more efforts than others, as their partners were of more incompatible weights and the runners of disparate strengths. But the whole group got across, somehow, some with more comic staggering and panicked squeals than others, and continued fighting through the forest towards the shrine path.

__

And the shrine steps.

__

"I –should– really –have– a –helmet!" Keiichi gasped as he bumped up the rough-cut stone, both arms curled around his head protectively and only the pinch of his elbow and knees keeping him on the blanket.

__

"Hauhauhauhau!" Hanyuu wailed faintly from the top of the staircase, apparently having faired no better.

__

"Eat dust, Onee!" Shion cried from slightly closer, one hand keeping Satoshi steady on his blanket as she charged up the steps, leaving the blond free to protect his head as much as he pleased.

__

"Grr, just you guys wait! I'll get you on the home stretch!" Satoko shouted from the bottom of the steps, Rika's normally-chirpy cries interspersed with squeaks of alarm as the blonde began to drag her up the steps.

__

Ultimately though, her threats and the others' efforts were of no use. Rena had too much of a head start, and the size difference between her and Hanyuu made it easy for the auburn-haired teen to drag and manhandle the young Furude as she saw fit, and Rena came in first by a mile. This, as the others quickly realized after a brief tally, put her in first: everyone else had won exactly one game each, but with the team-victory of her and Hanyuu, Rena was now sitting pretty on _two_ victories.

__

The sun was beginning to slip down to the opposite horizon, though still bright, as Hanyuu told the others to wait near the school shed, while she went out to fix the components of the next game. Both sides of the last game were all too ready to take a break, and interposed their languid, semi-exhausted and bruised wait with sips of mineral-tasting water from the faucet and flapping their damp clothes and hair, encouraging a breeze.

__

At length, Hanyuu returned, wiping some sweat off her petite brow.

__

"Okay!"

__

The other club members, sprawled in varying stages of rest across the schoolyard fixtures, sat up and offered their attention. Hanyuu smiled timidly and clasped her hands together, fiddling with her fingers.

__

"S-so, we're playing my game now…a Sponge Launch. We're playing in teams again, and each team must pick one of the catapults I've set up along the school wall. One partner has to fire sponges at the other, who must catch them across a certain line, then go find their bucket and empty them out. You can't use a sponge that you haven't caught –you have to be able to catch them to wring them out, and if you don't you have to send it back for your partner to try again. The buckets are the same color as the catapults, and they're all on school grounds. Whoever fills their bucket to the white line first wins the game. Any questions, hau? It's pretty simple, right?"

__

"Its veeeery simple." Rena hummed, eyeing the others with a suspiciously innocent smile as her blue eyes gleamed. "And if we win, again, then Rena's going to very, _very_ far in first~!"

__

"Hah!" Satoko threw back her head with a mocking laugh. "Bold of you to assume I would fail in a contest of catapults, Rena-san! Let's get started!"

__

The teams hastened to the other side of the school, where they found catapults tied with red, blue, yellow, and green rubber bands, and a line of jump-ropes stretched across the dirt at a respectable distance away on the other side of the yard. There was a few moment's pause as they teams found their catapults, and then a bit more nonsense as they decided who would be which partner, but at length, Keiichi, Shion, Hanyuu, and Satoko were seated behind the catapults, a huge basin of dripping sponges behind them for ammunition, and across the yard, Mion, Satoshi, Rena, and Rika were all stood waiting, ready for the first sponge to be flung.

__

"Hau, on your mark, get set, go!" Hanyuu squeaked, and with that, the second battle of the Hinamizawa School Branch began.

__

* * *

__

Everyone's strategy was pretty clear, Mion thought as she raced headlong through the schoolyard, looking everywhere for a red bucket. The throwers were the ones that could afford to be lax –the best of each team was placed on the opposite side of the jump-ropes, the best catchers and the best athletes, the best to search and find and seek and _run_. Between her and Keiichi, it was obvious who was the better choice –Keiichi was still working off the effects of being a cooped-up city-boy, while Mion had been running and playing in the tough terrain of a mountain village with all the rugged energy of a tomboy her entire life. She also knew the special Sonozaki family martial art, but that was mostly for elegance and self-defense, and also really not relevant to this situation.

__

Most importantly, they needed, at all costs, to keep the victory from Rena. There were only four games left after this, and in the high-stakes club competitiveness, it wasn't likely that any one person would definitively triumph over the rest. Therefore, if Rena won this race –or any of the subsequent ones– her place as the victor would be all but assured, and Mion _refused_ to let that happen. She had her place and her pride as club leader to consider.

__

So it was pretty clear, as Rena ducked and dodged under the thrown branches of Satoko, that sabotage and delay would be the name of the game for the rest of the club, while Rena had to contend with both their misdirects and her efforts to find and fill her own bucket before the sponges she carried dried out.

__

Mion grinned as she spotted the flash of red, situated awkwardly atop the roof of the school shed. How Hanyuu had gotten that bucket up there without them hearing or seeing…oh well.

__

Mion Sonozaki had a target and a mission, and she was _not_ about to lose.

__

* * *

__

"Hau…" Hanyuu whined sadly about an hour later, pouting as Mion proudly displayed her full red bucket, sparing a hand to high-five Keiichi with a grin. "That makes Rena-san, Keiichi-san, and Mion-san tied for first place, doesn't it?"

__

"So it does." Mion hummed, grinning wider and rubbing her hands. Then she abandoned the pretense of a plotting villain and looked around, squinting a little. "Anybody got a timepiece?"

__

"We can use the clock from the dodgeball game." Rena answered, going over towards the outdoor faucet and picking it up. She turned the small plastic box over and squinted. "Its just about five o' clock in the afternoon, Mi-chan."

__

" _Excellent_ …" Mion smirked and rubbed her hands again. "Well, I guess we're going into my last stretch of games, aren't we?" She spun in place and pointed towards the distant mountains. "Everybody back to the Furude Shrine, where we'll finish out this most munificent Midsummer's Day!"

__

* * *

__

"Right!" Mion announced near the outcrop looking out over the village, ticking off the various marks of the club and their achievements on her clipboard, updating the scoreboard from the last few games. "Home stretch! These games may be interconnected, but make no mistake, each one counts as a separate victory towards your cumulative whole!" She spun her pen and pointed towards the small ring of stones that had been gathered and formed on a stretch of bare rock that peered through the shallow dirt and dusty grass. "First off, we have Firefall! Each club member goes off into the woods and gets some timber and kindling and branches and sticks and twigs and –well, whoever collects the most firewood for our summer campfire wins! And remember, the amount of tinder is almost as important as its suitability –you get less points if you just bring back a whole mass of logs! It's the collective whole that's important! And as an additional treat, whoever brings back the most wood also gets the honor of being the first one to try and start the fire! Any questions?"

__

"None whatsoever." Rena grinned, and beside her, Keiichi formed his features into something vaguely resembling eager approval, while he frantically tried to remember just what kinds of wood were suitable for fire-making.

__

* * *

__

"Let's see…" Mion hummed as she strode along the line of firewood materials, hands folded behind her back as she marched with the air of a conquering general. "Very well-done Rena, a thorough presentation. Not that many, but definitely well-chosen."

__

The auburn-haired teen smiled modestly. "I picked out all the pieces that seemed cutest, Mi-chan~!" she sang, and Mion nodded with no small amount of relief, glad that Rena's compulsion towards her Take-It-Home Mode had kneecapped her for once instead of the other way around, since there were a limited amounts of tinder that could be deemed "cute" by Rena's taste in the woods, and there were only so many she could pick up even in her super-fast state of taking-home ecstasy.

__

"Rika, nice job. You got a lot of kindling, though the number of logs is a bit substandard." the club leader graciously added as she passed the _miko_ , looking at her respectable pile of bark shavings and slender twigs.

__

"Keiichi…" Mion trailed off, and shook her head sadly. She'd hoped otherwise, but it was painfully obvious that Keiichi had no idea of what he was supposed to gather beyond "sticks and logs," and had spent far too much time covertly spying on the others to try and figure out what he was supposed to bring in. His pile was smaller than the others, and most of the non-log pieces were at least slightly substandard in some small way. "Good try for your first attempt."

__

He flushed bright red, and didn't say anything as Rena giggled and reached out, sympathetically patting his shoulder.

__

"Very nice, Satoko." Mion added as she passed the small blonde, seeing her neat piles of kindling, twigs, and logs. Satoshi's pile, beside hers, had nothing to comment on –perhaps he had slightly less, but then again, that was to be expected from a former coma patient. Mion had full confidence that the older blond would improve steeply once he got his old fitness back, and give everyone some real competition.

__

"Hanyuu…that's very impressive." Mion said blankly as she looked at the surprisingly large pile of materials that Hanyuu had assembled. The lilac-haired Furude smiled and "hau"ed modestly, beaming in pride at her accomplishment.

__

However, the winner was clear. Though Hanyuu and Mion both came in at close second, Shion's enormous pile of tinder put the rest of them in the shade –almost literally.

__

"And our winner –Shion Sonozaki!" Mion announced with some small amount of inner pouting, gesturing to her twin with a flourish. "As such, she will be the first to attempt to build and light out little campfire. Shion?"

__

"On it." her twin replied smugly, starting forward and crouching down near the circle of rocks. She scooped some of the kindling into her hand, creating a careful hollow nest in the center of the rocks, laying sticks along and over it, before carefully looking over some larger logs and sticks and selecting several that she laid beside the stones, but did not place in the makeshift firepit yet. "You got Kasai's lighter, Onee?"

__

Mion pulled out the Bic lighter and handed it to Shion. Flicking the lighter a few times, Shion made sure the slender flame caught in the fluffy bundle of bark shavings and fibers, which slowly but surely smoldered and spread towards the twigs caging it in as she pulled her hand away. As they caught, Shion began quickly lying larger lengths of wood in a pyramid around the little nest of flames, which gradually bit into the bigger branches, the fire growing. After carefully dropping some wrist-thick logs of wood in another pyramid around the flames, Shion pronounced herself satisfied and sat back on her heels, watching the warm glow of the fire with a smile on her face. Although the sun was westering in earnest now, the light of the day fading, it hadn't even come to the point where the glow of day turned orange and red and gold –night was coming, but not yet immediately imminent.

__

"Okay then!" Mion smiled and clapped her hands together. "This part isn't a competition –but everyone find something to sit on while I go get our s'more and hotdog supplies from Rika-chan's house."

__

Despite her words, there was a somewhat vicious if unspoken competition for Best Improvised Chair as soon as their president was out of earshot, which ended when Mion returned with a load of supplies –a wheeled cooler with a box of chocolate and graham crackers strapped onto it, a large plastic bag of marshmallows tucked under her arm, and a strange arrangement of long, thin, forklike metal implements under her shoulder.

__

"So, who knows how to roast marshmallows and hotdogs?" Mion asked, pulling the cooler to a stop and setting down the fluffy plastic bag. No one raised their hand –such an occupation was rather uniquely Western, and Shion's Catholic school had been too prim and uptight for such festivities.

__

Mion nodded at the expected silence and sat down on the cooler, passing around the long forklike instruments. Everyone took one –the instruments consisted of a long steel wire, a bit thicker than that of a coathanger, with both ends forming two prongs at the instrument's tip, which then curved down like horns to meet and twist together about five inches down, creating a fork, before the two sides of the wire twisted apart once more as they continued in two parallel bars down to the base, which was rounded in a seamless, rubber-covered whole.

__

"See, you stick a marshmallow on one or both of these prongs here." Mion explained, ripping a jagged hole in the soft plastic bag before retrieving two marshmallows, and impaled the puffy white globs on both ends of the stick. "Then you hold them over a fire, and rotate them periodically, until they're just a little bit golden on all sides.

__

She clasped the pronged instrument between her knees, quickly rummaging in the other two boxes before pulling out a bar of chocolate and a single cracker, which she broke in half. Handing one half of the golden bar to Shion, she held the other on her knee, stacking a fragment of the chocolate bar on top of it. Mion picked up the pronged instrument and rolled it slowly, roasting the marshmallows, until they received the proper golden texture a few minutes later, and then brought them out from above the fire, laying one on its side on top of the chocolate.

__

"Cracker please." she asked Shion, who handed her the requested item. Mion took the cracker and squished it down on the top of the marshmallow, creating something rather like a puffy chocolate-marshmallow sandwich. She held it up with a triumphant grin. "Ta-da! The American delicacy known as a s'more! Pass it around, guys, give it a try!"

__

She handed the s'more to Shion, then quickly broke another graham cracker and squished the second marshmallow between it and another snippet of the bar of chocolate, passing the finished s'more around the opposite side of their little circle.

__

"Wow, these are really good!" Satoko hummed in surprise after she took the requisite tiny bite, licking a smear of slightly melted chocolate from the corner of her mouth.

__

"We've also got hotdogs, buns, and some seasonings." Mion announced, getting up from her makeshift seat and opening the lid, picking up several plastic packages of hotdogs and hotdog buns, as well as several bottles dripping with icy condensation. "Everyone knows how to roast a hotdog, right?"

__

"Yup!" the club members replied cheerily.

__

"Well then!" Mion sat back down, grinning. "The next competition is also our dinner –whoever roasts the best hotdogs and marshmallows wins the game! We're not going for volume here, this is a gourmet event, and we're looking for what's tastiest!"

__

"But Mi-chan, isn't that mostly subjective, isn't it?" Rena asked, tilting her head as she blinked curiously. Mion nodded and shrugged in acknowledgement.

__

"Yes, but this is a group battle –everyone's food will be judged by everyone else, and a cumulative vote decide the winner!" she explained, holding a cautionary finger up in the air. "No interference with anyone else, if you please. We are dealing with open flames, after all."

__

The gathered group nodded. They may be more cavalier with various safety rules than Keiichi, for example, was used to, what with being rural children with far more independence and access to slightly-to-very-dangerous materials than their urban counterparts, but fire was another kettle of fish entirely. One wrong move could not only harm them, but also burn down a significant portion of the surrounding woods, shrine, and village.

__

Mion passed around the bags of food, and everyone settled down to a slightly less frenetic challenge, relaxing in the warm, comfy aura of the flames as they slowly spun their roasting forks and chattered about various things, bantering on the day now almost gone by, reminiscing on some of their previous challenges, or simply sitting in contentment and basking in the presence of their friends.

__

As the sun sank further, the air turning a rich orange-gold as the sky began to change hues, they finished up, licking sticky fingers and berating and congratulating each other on the results of the game. Despite Rika's culinary mastery, Satoshi's patience –and experience, perhaps, with past baseball cookouts– had carried him and his expertly-toasted marshmallows over all the rest, though Shion, who had attended one or two of those same barbeques herself, came in close second.

__

This changed the color of their competition somewhat, as Satoko, Rika, and Hanyuu were the only ones without two victories to their names, and there were but two competitions left. One of them would, undoubtably, be in last place, whereas Satoshi, Keiichi, Rena, and the twins were sitting pretty on two victories each, leaving them comfortably in the lead –except in the highly-unlikely case of one of the three girls snatching two consecutive victories.

__

"So then," Mion began briskly as she led them towards the edge of Rika, Hanyuu, and Satoko's backyard, twirling her pen in one hand. "-our swimsuits have all dried off from sitting by the fire, have they not?"

__

"Yup." Keiichi answered with a slight yawn, hands stuck in his pockets. The day had been long, and he'd woken up obscenely early, after all.

__

"All dry here!" Rena added brightly from behind him, smiling.

__

"Truly, such excellent pacing and planning is a hallmark of our club's devious leader, isn't it, Onee?" Shion asked with a grin, fluttering her fingers at her twin coyly. "Running around getting all wet, and then sitting in front of a nice toasty fire for long enough to dry off –just in time for more water! Really, I must congratulate you."

__

"Yes, yes, yes indeedy!" Mion cackled, sticking her pen in between her fingers as she rubbed her hands deviously, clipboard under one arm. "For now comes our penultimate challenge – Christmas in July! Once again joining forces in teams, each of us will undertake to build a "snow fort" out of the material available here –trees, branches, and so on– and arm ourselves with the buckets of water balloons the redoubtable Kasai has so kindly left out for us. There is a time limit of thirty minutes to construct our forts, and not even a _leaf_ may be added after the timer goes off. Much like our earlier game of dodgeball, the objective of this particular challenge is to _not_ get wet –whoever gets the most soaked by the end is the loser, with additional points removed should their fort collapse. Any questions?"

__

"Are you all ready to surrender now, mew?" Rika asked cheerily. After all, this was she and Satoko's backyard –what they didn't know about the terrain wasn't worth knowing.

__

* * *

__

To the surprise of absolutely no one –Keiichi included– both the race to build the forts and the exchange of watery missiles afterwards was a long and bitter battle, with each of the four teams striving with varying levels of desperation for the ascendancy. For Rika and Satoko, this was one of their last two chances to keep from receiving the dreaded club punishment games –for Hanyuu and Rena, it was a chance to avoid the same and to crown her achievements with glory, respectively. Each club member drew forth their fullest and deepest potential but, alas, by the end of the match it was no use.

__

Rika and Satoko knew too much about their surroundings, had known where to find the best pieces of wood to construct the sturdiest fort, and their diminutive size had allowed them to hunker down behind its formidable bulwarks and rain a never-ending hail of squishy balloons at their collective foes, thus earning them victory.

__

Mion noted aloud as she ticked off marks on the clipboard of scores, to much frantic "hauhauhau"ing and gushing tears, that this left Hanyuu as the only club member without two victories to her name, and with only one game left, it seemed unlikely that she should prove ascendant.

__

Especially with such an arbitrary game.

__

The sun was sinking well and truly now, the orange disk bleeding out into the horizon as it dyed the Hinamizawa countryside crimson, and shadows were falling thick and fast on the forest-shrouded mountain slope as Mion gathered them together again, this time near the back of Hanyuu, Rika, and Satoko's house, where a series of odd globes had been stuck into the ground.

__

"Our last challenge for this glorious Midsummer's Day, everyone, is simplicity itself." the club leader announced gravely. "You all see the fireflies?"

__

The soft, yellow-green blinks of light were indeed beginning to weave among the trees and tall grass, and everyone's eyes briefly followed the tiny dancing sparks. The club acknowledged that they did, in fact, see the glow of the bugs.

__

"Well, for this, our twelfth and last game, the objective is simplicity itself. The sun will set at precisely 7.01, and whoever catches the most fireflies by that time is our final winner!" Mion cried, jabbing a slender finger up in the air as she punched her fist towards the sky. "So everyone grab a sphere and let's go!

__

With a laugh and a giddy cry, the club members seized the globes and plunged into the cool velvety darkness of the woods around the shrine, eyes gleaming as they chased after the elusive flicker of the drifting fireflies. Grass swished around bare legs, resinous swatches of sap clinging to palms as they lunged and half-fell to swing the globe and stick like a flyswatter at a fleeing bug, scrapes rubbing across knees and elbows as the children chased the flickering spots of light through the tangled, chirping mess of nature, the drone of the cicadas slowly fading away as day gave into the inevitably slow approach of night.

__

Calls echoed among the trees, faint and far like the whispers of a ghost, the club members laughing, congratulating, and taunting each other as little seeds of light grew and glowed inside their crystal balls, catching firefly after firefly as the tiny bugs landed and crawled around inside, the globes bouncing and clanking softly against their sticks as the children ran after the next glimpse of ghostly light-sparks.

__

* * *

__

"Well…" Mion began, then trailed off. There really wasn't anything to say, and everyone seemed beyond even understanding such an outcome –except for Rika, who was glaring daggers at her oddly sheepish-looking cousin.

__

For Hanyuu's globe was shining brightly, with dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of the pin-sized insects fluttering and crawling inside, and even as the other club members looked at her, more of the bugs seemed to settle softly around the shyly grinning Furude, circling around her head and horns and drifting around her body.

__

"Mew, Oyashiro-sama must have _really_ blessed you, Hanyuu." Rika said at length, placing odd emphasis on her words and narrowing her eyes as Hanyuu squeaked and flushed guiltily, for some strange reason. "Now we all have two victories each, which makes this day a club-wide tie, doesn't it, Mi?"

__

"Eh…" The club president coughed and looked down at her sheet again, double-checking the scores. "Uh, yeah…no doubt about it. Double-wins for everyone! Well, isn't that convenient? I thought for sure Hanyuu-chan was going to end up with the triplicate club punishment for today!" she laughed.

__

Hanyuu began to sweat as Rika eyed her even more obviously. "H-hau! Yes, it must be a miracle! So the games for today are done, yes? My goodness, it was fun!"

__

Rika turned away from her cousin with a slight sigh, as though resigned to something, and smiled up at Mion. "Mew! Today was pretty fun! What are we doing tomorrow?"

__

"Who knows –but I can promise you it'll be fun!" Mion laughed, putting both hands on her hips.

__


	55. Day 25: Dollhouse (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a spiritual successor to the 5th prompt from last year's Higurashi Month, the Smoke, Fog, & Haze one. I'm rather inordinately proud of my work with that spooooky haunted dolls snippet, and its been a while since I cranked out a poem, so I felt like I should try to keep in practice…since poems really, really aren't my thing. Hence, this bit here.

Click, click, tick, tock  
Time is winding 'round the clock

Ding, dong, won't be long  
The life within us is growing strong

Cry, cry, don't say goodbye  
Can't win you back no matter how we try

Sing, sing, we are puppets on your string  
Your fame and fortune what we bring

We are dolls in your house  
Scurry, scurry goes the mouse  
Filthy, filthy, dirty louse  
Such interference we don't espouse

Die, die, say goodbye  
From our master, we won't untie

We are dolls in your magic house,  
So about our methods, please don't grouse.


	56. Day 26: Hero (2019)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna do a whole lot more, cover all my favorite bits and turn Rika and Satoko into the sassmasters Isaac and Hector respectively, but then I realized that eh, I don't have the time, and there's already one obnoxiously long snippet for this month. Probably two, since there's another really long one that I haven't finished yet. Ugh.

A churchbell tolled softly in the distance, the orange and red glow of fireplace flames lighting the clumsy glass windows of the village houses.

A woman strolled through the village, towering, imposing, clad in a black cloak dark as night, her unbound mint-green hair falling in a silky curtain over her back. A satchel was held in her hand, a silver wedding band on her finger.

She moved to the verge of the village, and then outside it, drifting near-silently through the forest along a small dirt road lined with a wooden, snow-dusted fence

The woman stopped dead. There were browning speckles of something red on the ground, something that she inhaled sharply through her pointed nose, and knew, and feared.

She left the road and cut through the forest, crows flapping up and sounding their croaking calls as her feet rustled briskly through the grass. She stopped in a clearing, and her bag slipped off her shoulder and onto the ground.

The remains of a house lay in the grassy cleared space, the shell of a stone cottage, with burned timber scattered all about, possessions shattered and smoldering. Smoke still floated from the ruins of what had once been a home –smoke, and nothing else. Everything was gone.

Footsteps sounded up the path to the road, an old, stooped woman, wrapped in a rose-colored shawl and holding a bouquet of white lilies. She stopped a meter or so behind the frozen, younger woman.

"Are you Ms. Sonozaki?" she asked in a reedy, surprised voice. "He talked about you."

The green-haired woman turned, her own voice tight, cold, controlled, with an undercurrent of smoldering, deadly anger. "What happened? Where is my husband?"

The older woman looked down, blinking quickly as though to clear away tears. "Oh…the bishop took him. Witchcraft, he said." Her wrinkled, gnarled fingers tightened on the lilies –the funeral lilies– as her thin voice nearly broke. "They're burning him at the stake."

Steps shaky, the crone moved forward, passing the immobile young woman and tottering into the remnants of the house. "He was good to me, your husband. A good doctor." She sniffled as she laid the flowers down on what may once have been a hearthstone. "Its not right, what happened."

The younger woman narrowed her emerald eyes above the upraised collar of her cloak, not having turned around to watch the crone place the flowers. "Where are they holding him?" Her eyes moved back. "The cathedral?"

"Oh…" The old woman's voice broke, well and truly, and she looked away, eyes glistening. "Oh, no, ma'am. H-he'll be dead by now."

The mint-haired woman's jaw went slack, a spasm crossing her face as though she had been run through with a sword. Her incisors were sharp –too sharp. "What?" she whispered.

The crone shook her head defiantly. "I couldn't be there. I don't care what they say, I won't take joy in that man being _killed_ by the church." she croaked, voice quavering at the end. She looked down at the bouquet she had laid down. "I'm here remembering him, instead."

Behind the crone, a single thin trail of shining crimson ran down the younger woman's cheek, and she bowed her head, the wind kicking up as her hair floated before her face, hiding her grief. "He said to me, _'If you would love me as a mortal, then live as a mortal.'_ " She lifted her shaky hands before her chest, nails long and pointed. " _'Travel as a mortal.'_ "

The old woman looked at her. "He said you were traveling."

"I was." Her voice lowered ominously. "The way _mortals_ do." Her nails curled tightly into her palms as she clenched her slender fists, drawing thick drips of blood. " _ **Slowly**_. No more."

The crone gasped as the young woman turned around: as her mint-green hair blew aside, it revealed two eyes shining like pinpoints of flame, whites a bloody red, pupils a gleaming point of yellow light. Two twin lines of blood trailed down the young woman's perfect, porcelain cheeks, dripping where tears would be as she slowly stalked towards the terrified old woman.

"I do this last kindness in his name, he who loved you humans and cared for your ills. Take your family and leave Wallachia tonight." the young woman growled, the crone stumbling away, whimpering in fear, as the glow of embers at their feet strengthened, revealing the pitiless, inhuman face in all its horror. "Pack, and go, and do not look back." the young woman hissed, the flames climbing her body and sprouting like wings from her devilish eyes as the crone cried out. " _ **For no more do I travel as a mortal**_."

The crone screamed as the flames writhed and stretched and settled inside the Sonozaki wife's body, the young woman becoming a single, slender column of fire with blinding white eyes, a column that shot up into the sky and streaked through the night.

Towards the distant city.

* * *

The corpse tied to the flaming post inside the chapel was barely recognizable as human, now: a charred and charcoaled grinning defect, hardly more than a burnt-out shell of a skeleton. Still the fire roared, and with a gradual clatter, like fired clay, the structure of the skeleton collapsed, crumpling at the base of the pyre in a sad, ashen heap. The clergy who stood before it nodded approval –the gathered villages shouted, clapped, and laughed to see a witch so stricken from the earth.

"Ah, there. Quite a show." the bulging mayor said pompously, stepping forward to the side of the stone-faced bishop watching the proceedings. He turned to him. "Drinks?"

The bishop yawned quietly. "I…should minister to the archbishop. I fear he's not long for this world, to be honest."

The mayor chuckled. "Off to Heaven with him, eh? I suppose that's the ultimate goal for you priests…serving God in His true house and all that."

"It holds little appeal for me, to be honest." the bishop murmured as he began walking down the stone steps, with the mayor a beat behind.

"Really?"

The bishop frowned, tilting his head down. "There's so much left to be done on earth." He raised a hand in exasperation, clenching it. "Wallachia could be God's own country had I but time to burn out all the evil that hides _here_." he groaned.

The fire behind them suddenly flared sharply, a shockwave of heated air slamming throughout the chapel as both men stumbled and turned, the mayor gasping. The flames rippled, coiled, writhed and billowed outwards like a field of wheat under the summer breeze, condensing into a spindle of fire that swiftly melted and blew out the stone tiles beneath it, the hollow orange spaces in the flames shifting and writhing to form a skeleton mouth that roared, spreading another gust of hot air through the chapel, like a dragon. This form swiftly shuddered into the shape of a skeletal face with round, glowing yellow-white eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

_"What have you done?"_

"Satan!" the mayor gasped. As though responding to his cry, the skeletal face abruptly smoothed over, the flames flattening and stretching to form the elfin, sculpted face of an aristocratic-looking woman, her eyes still molten pools of white as the dark orange flames of her hair waved and danced, face glowing radiantly.

 _"What have you **done to my husband**?!"_ she demanded, louder, as the flames flared sharply, her voice the booming dissonance of church bells slightly out of tune, the dry roar of a fiery tornado.

" _In nomine Patris et Filii_ …" the bishop began shakily, withdrawing a golden cross from his robes and holding it out defensively towards the figure.

 _"I am Shion Sonozaki no Oni, and you will tell me why this thing has happened to my husband."_ the inferno-clad face hissed ferally, flames swelling and looming closer.

"Oh no. Oh, God!" the mayor exclaimed, flinching away. "Shion Sonozaki! She was supposed to be myth –a story made up by heretics!"

"He…he's a witch!" the bishop began shakily, and the golden bars of Shion's eyebrows slammed together as her voice took on a deadly calm.

_"Satoshi Hojo was a man of the sciences, and the **one thing** that justified humanity's **stench** upon this planet."_

"You are not real." the bishop hissed back, recovering his courage. "You, are a _fiction_ that justified the practice of black magic!"

The flames flared and spread outwards as the human-façade was stripped away, the pointed-toothed skull looming through. _" **A fiction**?!"_ Shion roared. _"You take my husband and deny I even **exist**?!"_

There was an ominous pause as she slowly regained her human form.

 _"I give you one year, Wallachians."_ Shion snarled as her voice calmed again, addressing the terrified citizens. _"You have one year to make your peace and remove any marks you have made upon the land. One year, and then I'll wipe all human life from the land of Wallachia. You took that which I love, so I will take from you everything you have and everything you have ever been. One year."_ The façade of humanity once again fell away, and the fire roared upwards into a roaring spindle as an unearthly howl split the air, shattering every window in the church.

There was silence inside the great building, as a hail of burning comets thundered down.

* * *

With a thought, Shion's mirror shattered, erasing the stony, tear-stricken visage staring back at her. The shards sang softly as they whirled through the air in an arabesque of sinuous shapes, her booted footsteps echoing off the walls as she strode towards a nearby desk.

With a furious cry, Shion swept the papers and instruments off, hearing them rustle and shatter as they hit the ground. She snarled and hit the table, palm down, splintering it in half, and stood panting slowly, as she glared down at the wreckage.

"One year!" the castle's master hissed, whipping out her arm as an electrical charge spiked through the hollow chamber where the mirror shards danced, whirling them faster. "It will take me one year to summon an army from the guts of hell itself!"

The study door opened as she spoke.

"No." a voice spoke from the shadows, firm and quiet. Shion did not move for a moment, then turned her head slightly, vision obscured by her curtain of long green hair.

"What do you mean, no?" she whispered ominously, slowly turning around as her emerald eyes gleamed red. "That man was the only reason on earth for me to _tolerate, human, life!_ "

"Then find the one who did the deed." her mysterious counterpart responded flatly. "If you loose an army of the night on Wallachia, you cannot undo it, and many thousands of people just as innocent as her will suffer and die."

Shion gritted her teeth. " _There **are** no innocents!_" she thundered, voice ringing through the study as she took a single furious step forward, her glowing red eyes casting daggers at the one in the shadows. "Not anymore! Any one of them could have stood up and said _'No, we won't behave like animals anymore.'_ " the furious vampire snarled, clenching her slender fist as blood ran down her skin, long sharp nails piercing her palm once again.

"I won't let you do it." The mysterious woman's eyes narrowed. "I grieve with you, but I won't let you commit genocide."

Shion snarled and threw herself forward, claws raised and outstretched, as the other woman reached for a sword at her hip.

She was too late, and a spray of blood fountained up into the darkness.

* * *

_One Year Later_

* * *

The choir sang in practiced harmony before the repaired steps of the Targovishte cathedral, the citizens gathering eagerly to see the face of the archbishop as he was brought forth on a gilded litter, carried by his priests. They cheered as the cathedral doors opened, the wrinkled archbishop peering benevolently out at his people as his acolytes carried him down the steps, towards the landing where the choir sang. They placed the gilded chair, decorated with crosses and holy symbols at every corner, on the stand waiting there and withdrew respectfully as he raised his hand, both crowd and choir falling silent. The archbishop sighed, then drew breath to address them.

"For twenty years have I served you, and God, as the archbishop to Targovishte Cathedral." he began in a creaking, yet authoritative voice. "Yet never before, have I felt the love of God shine so upon this great city. A little more than one year ago, many of us suffered a vision, during the God-willed punishment of a _witch_ in our midst. The _devil himself_ came to us! and threatened us with _doom_ in one year. And yet, here we are."

The halcyon sky began to darken, amber clouds rolling over the sun.

"The devil lied. Why should we be surprised?" He stretched out his hand as the cloud cover darkened, tinting the world crimson. "Do we not know the devil for a liar? Do we not know his works to be illusion?" He paused, and leaned forward, extending his arms in benediction. "Of course we do! Illusions and falsehoods hold no fear for us, for we are the _righteous_ of Targovishte, living as if cradled in the _love of God_."

_Plap._

The archbishop paused and looked down at his outstretched palms. There was a trickle of blood there, from a cut he did not have.

_Plap. Plap plap plap._

More droplets of red rained down onto his hands, a soft rushing sound filling the crowded square as dark clouds shrouded the sky, the crowd murmuring, then beginning to cry out and raise their voices in dismay and disgust as the rain thickened, and its origin became more obvious as the rich red liquid soaked into cowls and hair and clothes.

It was raining blood.

Soft, squishy, visceral sounds suddenly echoed from the tiles and rooftops, and the mayor blinked as something solid hit his shoulder, then bounced off. He stared as the fleshy object lay twitching at his feet. It was…an inhuman, reptilian creature, a tiny curled embryo of darkness soiled in blood, shrilling feebly.

The pavement began to crack, as rivers and streams and waterfalls of blood poured over the cathedral roof and the people screamed. The repaired windows suddenly blew outwards, shards of glass failing like hail as they struck down the priests, one shard impaling the archbishop through his back and knocking him out of the chair to the ground. He struggled to rise, managing to get up on his knees and turn as fire roared up from the cathedral. The rain of blood ceased as the column of fire spiraled up into the sky, dislodging the masonry of the church, as a familiar face loomed through the blackening clouds.

 _"One year."_ Shion Sonozaki seethed quietly. _"I gave you one year to make your peace with your **God**. And what do you do? **Celebrate** the day you **killed my husband**."_

There was an ominous pause as all faces turned up to the sky, despairing when moments before they had been in joy.

 _"One year, I gave you, while I assembled my armies. And now, I bring…your…death. You had your chance…"_ Her voice faded away as the fiery visage faded into smoke, which returned to the boiling red clouds.

Not even a moment of shocked silence passed before an explosion ripped through the town, an impossible conglomerate of spires and towers and a castle keep rising from the inferno of what had once been the church. Doors and shutters in the impossible structure banged open, a hellish flock of winged, leathery creatures swarming out and laying waste to the town. They spat fire from their batlike jaws, clawed and flayed open townsfolk with their long talons: nothing could stem their tide.

An enormous flock of bats swirled around the topmost spires of the sudden castle, and the creatures looked up to see their master as the black cloud of bats swirled and fluttered into a billowing face, ever-shifting, ever-eddying as the bats flew.

_"Kill everything you see. Kill them all. And once Targovishte has been made into a graveyard for my love, go forth into the country. Go now. Go to all the cities of Wallachia –Arges, Severin, Gresit, Chilia, Enisara! Go now, and **kill**! Kill for my love."_

Shion's voice became a thin whisper on the wind, heard only by those creatures that did her bidding, an echo of untold lament rolling unheard across the landscape as massacre followed close behind. _"Kill…for the only true love I ever knew. Kill for the endless lifetime of **hate** before me."_

The force holding the bats together wavered, and the ghostly face above Targovishte dissipated as horror was loosened upon Wallachia.

* * *

_Several Weeks Later_

* * *

In a squalid, small village not far outside Gresit, the lights of an inn glowed warmly, welcoming all to come and sample its…comforts.

Not overly good ones, to be sure. It was a toss-up or whether or not it would be better to dare the snow-crusted outdoors than the reeking, uncouth atmosphere of the bar. Several villagers were gathered near the bar itself, while another man, an outsider, sat at one of the tables and drank. He wore a huge, tattered fur cloak and had weary periwinkle eyes, seemingly more intent on getting sloshed than the…fascinating conversation…at the counter.

"So I says to him, _'Its my goat. I been tending goats since I was four years old.'_ "

"Right, right."

" _'And I'd know if my goat was in love with you.'_ "

"For God's sake."

"He says to me, _'I know your goat's in love with me.'_ "

"So you said _'How?'_ Bosha." the lankier partner asked.

"So I says how!" his overweight companion agreed, jabbing up a finger. "And he says, _'Well, she fucks me, don't she?'_ "

"And that's when you hit him." the other man said, turning to the bar with the other as the stout man picked up his tankard.

"Right across the eyes with a shovel!" his companion agreed, staring into his partner's face…though with the height difference, his blurry eyes were focused on the other man's leather apron. "And now, the headman, he says _I_ have to pay the bastard money because he went blind."

"Not fair." the other agreed amicably, sipping at his tankard.

This…enlightening conversation…continued for several moments, with the stout man demanding more ale for he and his cousin Kob, which started an argument about whether or not they were brothers by virtue of having the same father, or cousins because Kob had evidently been born from Bosha's aunt, ending with a threat to end the argument via shovel.

"Anyone else while I'm pouring?" the bartender asked.

The cloaked man in the corner waved a groggy arm. "One over here."

Before the bartender could oblige, however, another villager burst in, demanding ale to quench his desperate thirst. He was hollow-cheeked and looked frightened: terrified, even, for he had seen the Sonozaki's horde, traveling west towards Gresit.

The mood the bar took an abrupt turn for the worst, with all conversation turning towards whether or not the horde would miss their own little town, and who was to blame for it.

"No, it all comes down to the families and the houses, don't it?" Bosha demanded. "The great houses of Gresit…" He hawked and spat. "Shion Sonozaki? An old family. The capital? All run by the great houses. And they're not even the worst. The Maebaras?"

The man in the corner opened his eyes, which seemed sharper than before.

"We should have killed all the Maebaras."

" _Shit_." the cloaked brunet muttered emphatically to himself, subtly averting his face.

"Its all about these old families, like the Maebaras, who control all the power and go to war with each other. And who's caught in the middle?"

"We are." Kob said.

"We are!" his brother/cousin agreed vehemently. "Because we, don't, matter. Do you know why? Where'd you come from?"

"Well, out of your aunt, according to you." Kob said with a shrug.

"You came from shit." Bosha said with great conviction. "I came from shit! We all, came from shit! We just work for a living every day of our lives, we just keep those bastards in _food_ and _wool_ …slaves! That's what we are –slaves to the great old families and their games!"

The cloaked brunet suddenly heaved himself to his feet, staggering over to the bar. "Sorry, can I get my ale?" he slurred, leaning over the counter as he placed one elbow atop it. "It's, just…that I think I'm sobering up."

"Alright, alright, but I wanna see some coin from you now." the bartender said. The brunet began to rummage drunkenly in his clothing, and Bosha stiffened as the cloak slipped aside to reveal a surprisingly clean white shirt –and a crest emblazoned in gold on the left breast.

"Oi! What's that on your chest?"

"Uh…" the brunet blinked groggily. "My shirt." He turned to the bartender and held up a slender pouch of coins that he had discovered in his rummaging. "Just one more tankard, eh? Sooomething to keep me warm, while I go find a tree to sleep under."

"That's a family crest. I know it." the stout peasant persisted, stepping forward.

"I don't." the cloaked man responded flatly. He turned to the bartender with an attempt at another winning smile. "Just one more drink and then I'll leave, alright?"

"That's a Maebara crest!" Bosha snapped, stepping forward and crowding the other man as he leaned back off the bar.

"Really?" the other man hummed almost teasingly, and glanced back at the stony bartender again, tossing the pouch down. "Look, here's the money."

"You're a Maebara, aren't you?" Bosha demanded as the other two closed ranks behind him. "House of Maebara! Family Maebara!"

"Never met them." the brunet, his slur becoming slightly more pronounced, before he wearily rubbed his forehead. "Listen, jus', forget it. I'll just go."

He made as if to leave the room, but the stout peasant shoved him back to where he stood.

"No! You're a Maebara! This is all your fault."

"I don't know what you're talking about." the cloaked man sighed.

"Yes you do." Kob said ominously, stepping up beside his cousin and clenching his fist.

"Everyone knows…the Maebaras dealt in black magic." Bosha sneered. "The Maebaras dealt with monsters!"

"The Maebaras _fought_ monsters, son." the brunet snapped back, steel suddenly entering his voice and periwinkle eyes as his stance firmed. Then he blinked and looked aside sheepishly. "Er, so I'm told. This," He gestured to his chest. "-is just an old shirt."

"The Maebaras were excommunicated by the church: banished, disowned, their lands _taken_ , because they were evil."

"Evil." Kob echoed.

"And now Sonozaki's hordes are abroad in the land." Bosha continued, fist clenching. "And whose fault is that?"

The other man gestured irritably. "Well, it ain't mine."

"The Maebaras traded in black magic, and now black magic is all over Wallachia." The stout peasant stated with irrefutable conviction. "I think you know exactly whose fault that is."

The brunet sighed and raised both hands, palm out. "I'm leaving, okay? I'm, leaving, _now_."

He turned aside, but Bosha grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him back around. "So you can lead your monster friends back here?!"

"So I can find somewhere to piss and somewhere else to sleep." the other man snapped.

"No, you can sleep right here." Bosha growled. The brunet grinned and slowly leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose.

"You haven't got your shovel."

Unsurprisingly, a bar fight ensued, in which it came out that the periwinkle-eyed brunet was Keiichi Maebara, House of Maebara, last son of the Maebara family.

It also came out that he wasn't that bad a fighter, even when stinking drunk.

* * *

A day later, in the city of Gresit, that same Keiichi Maebara was muttering sullenly to himself as he shuffled down the stone steps of the city catacombs, on the hunt for a lost Speaker.

As he got deeper and deeper in, however, his resentful mumbling trailed off, and he began frowning skeptically at the walls and the devices fixed to them. There were metal pipes that carried some unknown hot liquid, like the veins of some labyrinthine monster, and strange, glass-covered lanterns that glowed a sharp blue without fire or flickering.

At length, he found a place deep underground with those lanterns, scattered with, oddly enough, statues. Finely-wrought statues, each wrinkle and fold of fabric so real one could squint and imagine a person lay there –for some were laying, some were kneeling and crouching with crumbling knees and expressions of woe, and there was one that had a disturbingly realistic decapitated neck-stump, slumped against a pillar.

Near the center of the room was a life-sized figure in Speaker robes, hands upraised and cloak billowing back as though to ward off a blow. Keiichi stepped nearer and inspected it, tapping his unsheathed sword against the raised stone hood.

"Either someone left a statue of a Speaker down here, or…" he mused aloud, only to be cut off an inhuman groan and the rumble of heavy footsteps.

Keiichi turned quickly, seeing a colossal, misshapen, one-eyed figure lumbering towards him. Its lone eye was blue, but quickly began to distort and turn red.

"Cyclops." the brunet breathed in shock, and yelped and ducked aside as a beam of red light suddenly cut through the room, originating from the monster's shining eye. He dodged and weaved frantically as that beam cut across the room, grinding stone in its wake, finally ducking behind a thick pillar as sparks shattered around him. "Stone-Eye Cyclops!" he gasped, pressing his back against the comfortingly solid rock of the pillar. "Right out of the family bestiary." His periwinkle eyes turned to the looming monster somewhere unknown behind him. "God shits in my dinner once again."

Keiichi ducked and ran frantically out of the way as it rounded the pillar, beam of light raking across the ground. His eyes raked the chamber as he ran and it lumbered after him, potentially spotting a strategy, but then grunted as it grabbed him by the head in one enormous hand and bodily flung the young hunter against a pillar. Keiichi weaved between several more of the blessed, wonderful stone columns as the cyclops fired its beam again, flipping his sword and then flinging it in a perfect shot at the monster, as the blade sank nearly a foot deep in its heart.

The cyclops paused, and looked down. It did not seem to be overly inconvenienced.

"Come on." Keiichi muttered to himself. "Come on! You're dead!" He swallowed and began backing away as the cyclops looked up again. "Stop and _notice_ you're dead…!"

He yelped and ducked away as it fired its beam at him again. As Keiichi dodged behind a pillar, he pulled out his whip and flung it at the beast, the tough leather cord wrapping tightly around the hilt as he jerked, withdrawing the sword. With an expert snap and twist of his wrist, and an underhand spin of his body, he knocked the sword upside the cyclops's chin, blood spurting out briefly as the sword spun free. Coiling his whip as he ran, he jumped onto the stone Speaker, using it as a launch point to rebound off the high point of a pillar, boot flashing out as he kicked the hilt of his sword and it spun forwards, ending in a perfect shot to the cyclops's face, the blade going hilt-deep in its enormous eye.

Keiichi landed as the monster began to collapse. The rumble of its impact shook the upright Speaker statue, which wobbled, falling over as he hastily moved to catch it, and it gleamed red, turning to cloth and flesh. The hood fell back as the person collapsed into his arms, revealing a young woman with saw-straight auburn hair cut at an incline to her chin. She blinked open dazed blue eyes, and began to say something, before her eyes widened sharply and she rolled over, vomiting with great feeling onto the cold stone floor as her newly-corporeal stomach rebelled.

"I wished Speakers wouldn't do that." Keiichi commented as he retrieved his sword.

"What?" she asked groggily, weakly bringing her head up as the retching ceased.

"Dress the girls like boys." the brunet responded, not unkindly, wiping the blood clean before sheathing his sword again.

"Its…safer when we…travel." the young woman said blankly, standing up as puzzlement won over nausea in her expression. "What happened?"

Keiichi jabbed a thumb at the corpse.

"You walked into a cyclops. Turns you to stone with its eyeball and feeds on your terror while you're trapped in your own body."

"Did…" She blinked as her voice grew indignant. "Did you climb on me?"

Keiichi shrugged. "Eh, a bit." he admitted without shame.

She scowled and folded her arms. "That was rude."

"Excuse me?"

"Who are you anyway?"

"Keiichi Maebara. You?"

"Rena Ryugu."

* * *

Deeper into the catacombs they went, Rena bending Keiichi's ear nonstop about the importance of finding some Sleeping Solider and how it would help them to defeat Shion Sonozaki, and almost completely ignoring all the traps and strange devices he had to fish her out from the whole way there.

Her command of magic was impressive, though. Keiichi's opinion of Speaker-Magicians improved as she carelessly cast her fire and manipulated her ice to destroy traps, all without pausing for breath.

At length they came to an impressive, vaulted room, with a coffin on a dais near the back, more of those strange glass lanterns ringing the room, with an odd glass device filled with some red liquid standing behind the coffin. As the duo walked down the red carpet, there was a soft _click_ , and the lid of the coffin began to rise, steam hissing as gears began to grind.

An ethereally pale young woman rose from the coffin, arms folded over her breast and long mint-green hair floating behind her. Her eyes were closed, and she wore only a pair of black trousers and a white chest-wrap binding her bosom. A long red weal of a scar stretched diagonally across her abdomen, and she floated without any assistance from the machines at all, until she was left hovering vertically a few feet above the floor, facing the slack-jawed duo.

Her head fell limply forward, long unbound hair covering her delicate, elfin face, and at last she spoke, her voice calm and commanding.

"Why are you here?"

"The story-" Rena gasped, excitement plain on her face. "-the Messiah sleeps under Gresit! The woman who will save us from The Demon."

"And you?" the floating woman asked, turning her head a little as her unseen eyes rested on Keiichi. Skepticism was colored thick in her elegant voice. "Are you in search of a mythical savior?"

"I fell down a hole." Keiichi replied, with his typical blasé sarcasm. Rena glared at him and turned to the woman again.

"Shion Sonozaki is abroad in the land. She has an army of monsters, she's determined to wipe out all human life wherever she finds it."

"Is that what _you_ believe?" the mint-haired woman asked after a slight pause.

"That The Demon's released her horde in Wallachia?" Keiichi asked, raising a brow. "That's fact. There's no "belief" involved…but that's not what you're asking."

"No."

Keiichi narrowed his eyes. "You're asking if I believe you're some… _sleeping messiah_ who'll save us, and no, I don't."

"Maebara!" Rena hissed.

He continued without acknowledging her. "I know what you are."

A subtle smirk curled what little of the woman's face they could see through her long curtain of hair. "And what am I?"

A thin trickle of sweat ran down Keiichi's brow. "You're a vampire."

At last the woman raised her head, at last her hair fell back, revealing deep, blazing emerald-green eyes set within a pale, noble face. Her lips were parted slightly, revealing long, snakelike fangs. Rena gasped and jerked back.

"So, I have to ask myself," Keiichi began, eyes narrowed. "-have we come down here to wake up the woman to kill Shion Sonozaki, or did we come here…to wake Shion Sonozaki?"

"You call me Shion Sonozaki." the woman asked quietly, floating down the steps to hover above the carpet.

"I'll call you anything you like if you're gonna show me your teeth." Keiichi tossed back, hand going to his whip.

"She called you Maebara." the woman began, extending one hand to the side. "House of Maebara?"

" _Keiichi_ , Maebara." the brunet replied tersely. "Last son of the House of Maebara."

"The Maebaras fought creatures of the night, did they not?" the woman asked, raising an elegant brow. "For generations."

Keiichi's breath hissed through his teeth, starting to stalk in a circle around the vampire. "Say what you mean."

"The Maebaras killed vampires."

"Until the good people decided they didn't want us around." Keiichi sneered bitterly, gesturing with one hand.

"And now Shion _no Oni_ is carrying out an execution order on the human race." the woman raised her hand to Keiichi. "Do you care, Maebara?"

Keiichi stopped, standing parallel to the vampire, near the dais. He glanced away. "Honestly, I didn't, no. But now…yes. It's time to stop it."

Rena smiled in grateful approval. The vampire was unmoved.

"Do you think you can?" she asked coldly.

"What I think…is I'm going to have to kill you." Keiichi sighed, putting a hand on his whip again.

"Maebara, no!" Rena protested, throwing out her hands. "She's the one we've been waiting for."

"No, she's not." Keiichi argued, beginning to pace in the opposite direction again. "She's a vampire."

"I don't like your tone, Maebara." The woman's eyes narrowed. "I asked you a question –do you care?"

Keiichi gritted his teeth. "I _care_ about doing my family's work. I care about saving human lives. Am I going to have to kill you?"

"Do you think you can?" the woman asked sharply, the first instance of true emotion coloring her voice, disdain and haughty offense mixed in her tone. "If you're really a Maebara and not some _runt_ running around with the family crest, you might be able to."

Her index finger twitched just barely, and a huge claymore sword flew up out of the coffin, spinning towards her hand as she caught it flawlessly and brandished the ridiculously long blade. "Let's find out."

"Maebara, you can't do this!" Rena cried, stepping forward.

"Tell it to your floating vampire Jesus here." Keiichi sneered, drawing his whip.

"You've got nothing but insults, have you? A tired little-" The woman began, floating forward, and grunted as there was a thundershock of impact, Keiichi's whip striking hard and true against her abdomen as she was sent flying backwards. She landed soundlessly on the polished stone floor, sliding backwards with the true grace of a predator as her long curtain of hair hung down over her face again. She gave a low growl as Keiichi withdrew his whip, coiling it back up, and looked up again, baring her teeth in a vampiric hiss as blood trickled down from the rent in her stomach.

Keiichi was unimpressed. "Stone the fuck up." he grunted, sending his whip flying out again.

"You can't do this. Maebara!" Rena begged him as the two combatants circled each other, whip and sword clashing thick and fast.

"She's not your messiah." Despite the rapid movement of both the vampire and his whip, Keiichi's breathing was barely labored. "The Sonozaki castle can appear anywhere, Rena. And the inside looks just like this."

"And do you know what Shion looks like?" the woman demanded, bouncing off his blows and warding them off with quick, efficient swats of her long sword.

"Nobody knows what Shion really looks like." Keiichi panted, increasing his rhythm. "You've got fangs, green hair, and you sleep in a coffin. That's more than close enough for me."

The woman lashed out with her sword and caught his whip, pulling hard. Keiichi couldn't sustain a contest against her vampiric strength, and willingly let her pull him forward, dropping the whip as he went and drawing his short sword. The two went at it, fiercer than ever, for several moments, sparks flying from the speed of their clashing swords.

The woman suddenly blurred red, and though Keiichi lifted his sword and deflected the blow, striking an equal and opposite line of crimson across the scar on her chest, his sword broke and he was sent flying backwards. He groaned and tried to rise, but she was upon him before he could even sit up, grasping the back of his tousled brown hair and wrenching his head back, fangs poised above his face as she hovered over him and hissed.

"Do you have a god to put a last prayer to, Maebara?" she asked in a calm, deadly voice.

He grunted in pain, then grinned shakily. "Yeah. Dear God, please don't let the vampire's guts ruin my good tunic."

Her balefully shining emerald eyes widened. "What-"

The woman grunted as there was a stabbing sound, glancing down her body to see a small throwing knife embedded in her sternum, angled towards her heart. "I can still rip your throat out." she hissed, her smooth voice briefly laden with strain.

"You can." Keiichi agreed, breathing ragged. "But it won't stop me staking you!"

"But you will still die."

He turned his face up to hers more voluntarily, smirking. "But I don't care." Keiichi breathed back. "Killing you…was the point. Living through it was just a luxury."

The woman blinked, then began to chuckle quietly to herself, her teeth still bared.

The light around the two suddenly brightened, turning orange, and there was a soft rush of flame. Rena stood directly behind the vampire, her right arm outstretched and a tiny ball of fire held between her upraised pinkie and index fingers. "I will _incinerate_ you before your fangs touch that man's throat." she warned, as the vampire's chuckling stopped.

The woman turned her head slightly, her neutrally grave expression unchanged. "I thought I was your legendary savior."

Rena's blue eyes narrowed. "So did I. But _he_ saved my life."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You're a Speaker-Magician."

Rena lifted her chin proudly. "Yes, and his goal is mine –to stand up for the people."

The vampire's eyes turned to the prone Keiichi beneath her once more, and she smirked. "Good. Very good." Her luminescent emerald eyes closed. "A vampire hunter and a magician. You'll do."

The wounds covering her body slowly began to close as she released Keiichi's hair and rose, making the brunet blink. The mint-haired woman stood tall and proud as her eyes opened and surveyed the two humans, the ball of flame between Rena's fingers still defensively shimmering and present.

"I am Mion Sonozaki. Once known as Shion Sonozaki _no Oni_ …" She bowed her head. "Though that title has been passed to my younger sister for many years now. I've been asleep here in my private keep under Gresit for a year," Her slender hand came up, cupping the angry red scar slicing across her torso. "-to heal the wounds dealt by my twin…when I attempted to stop her unleashing her demon armies."

The ball of fire went out as Rena lowered her hand, eyes wide. "You _are_ the Sleeping Soldier."

Mion turned to her slightly. "I'm aware of the stories. I'm also aware that the Speakers consider the story to be information from the future." She quirked a brow. "Do you know the whole story?"

Rena blinked, and then flushed. "Yes."

" _'The sleeping soldier will be met by a hunter, and a scholar.'_ " the vampire quoted, walking to her coffin and withdrawing a vibrant red robe, covered in a print of dark peonies.

"So what happens now?" Rena asked as they watched her fold the robe around herself and tie it with a wide cloth belt.

"I need a hunter, and a scholar." Mion said, retrieving the sheathe for her sword and sliding it into her belt. "I need help to save Wallachia. Perhaps the world." Her blade sang as it spun up from the floor, sliding seamlessly into the leather sheathe without even a tiny hitch in movement from the vampire as she walked towards the humans at the bottom of the dais. "And defeat my sister."

Keiichi narrowed his eyes and looked at the vampire. "Why?"

Mion bowed her head as she came to a halt at the bottom of the steps, her emerald eyes growing sad and haunted as they stared at the ground. "Because it is what my brother-in-law would have wanted." she whispered.


	57. Day 27: A Day in the Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was writing this, I realized that bodyguarding...really doesn't involve that much. You sit, alertly, or you drive and safety-confirm places, but other than that...you just sit. For the whole day. Around your charge. And you can't like do anything to entertain yourself as you sit or stand for hours on end, because you're bodyguarding and you're supposed to be ready to judo-chop anybody jumping in through the window. I would never be a successful bodyguard. Mad respect for Kasai's patience and ability to detach.

Kasai Tatsuyoshi woke up at precisely six o'clock AM, regardless of the day.

His alarm would blare, and he would allow it to do so as he engaged in his first action of the day: to check that his room in Shion-san's apartment was untouched, the window barred and locked and his small Walther PPK still holstered around his calf.

Once both requirements had been met, he would silence the alarm and dress himself in the inconspicuous clothing required of a Sonozaki guard –usually a plain dark Western suit. It was not intricate enough to garner attention, but would also stand him in good stead if summoned by anyone official: it was a somber business suit, and thus, invisible to the right people and glaringly obvious to the others, those whose opinion of him and his young mistress was based on the judgment of their appearances.

Clothed, and with at least one other gun and small knife on his person, Kasai would begin his morning rounds. First, checking in on the young miss –Shion-san was typically sprawled all over her bed at this hour, fast asleep, her long green hair splayed everywhere around her face and occasionally hanging off the bed. Once he did a sweep of her room, checking under and behind the various items of furniture and peering inside her closet and behind the curtains for intruders –exerting his knowledge of stealth to the fullest to avoid waking Shion-san, of course– Kasai would silently pronounce himself satisfied, leaving the room as quietly as he had entered and making a sweep of the rest of the apartment.

Once he had firmly established that there had been no invaders of the course of the night, nor any persons of ill intent hiding in the apartment now, it was generally about 6.45 AM. Kasai would then make his way to the small kitchenette and begin cooking breakfast for himself and Shion-san, with some variations to the health-oriented meal depending on the day and what she planned to do for it. At or around 7.00, the young miss would wake to her own alarm, and she would slouch, drowsy-eyed, into the kitchen, yawning and listlessly accepting whatever he put on her plate, already laid out at the table. Typically, Kasai would have already eaten, but occasionally he would join her in the morning meal, while Shion-san methodically inhaled her food until some semblance of her usual lively energy drained back into her posture and sparkling teal eyes.

The schedule would deviate from there: on most weekdays, Kasai would then drive his young charge to the Hinamizawa branch school, listen to her chatter the whole way and offer advice or silence as needed, remind her to be careful upon arrival and their parting, and then drive back to the apartment, where, depending on the day, he would clean the apartment, or wash their clothes, or otherwise gainfully occupy himself with homely chores until he drove back to pick up the young miss after the club games.

If it was the weekend, perhaps Shion-san would require him to drive her to the store for groceries, or back to Hinamizawa proper for more games between her and her sister and their friends. Very rarely, it would be a call to attend at the main house, which he always scrupulously made sure to arrive early at.

More recently, Shion-san required long drives to the Irie Clinic, and if Kasai also made sure to accompany her all the way down to the hidden levels with one hand on his gun, well, it was only fair to remember that they had participated in a violent shootout on these premises before.

Shion-san would read to the unconscious Satoshi Hojo-san, and Kasai would then drive her home, or to whatever other destination she required.

Most days he was also her mode of transport to her work in Okinomiya, making sure to loom appropriately around the young hooligans who occasionally made it their business to harass Shion-san and the other waitresses.

Regardless, he would make and share dinner with Shion-san, with much more chattering on her part, and occasional grave comments on his. He would leave her to her own business –homework perhaps, or calls to her sister and friends– while he indulged in some private time of his own, perhaps practicing the assembly and cleaning of his small arsenal of handguns and other weapons, or reading a book, or rarely answering the call of Sonozaki duty and attending various other meetings or taking care of other businesses irrelevant to Shion-san.

His young charge would let him know when she planned to retire for the night, and he would make a round of the apartment once more, before accepting the safety of the premises and bidding her goodnight. He would then make another round as she bedded down, checking that the locks were secure, before retiring to his own room and undressing, setting the alarm for tomorrow and laying down to rest for another day as Shion Sonozaki's bodyguard.


	58. Day 28: Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The temptation to do something smarmily and utterly child-safe in the whole Alpha/Omegaverse-porn style was overwhelming. I hope y'all appreciate my restraint.

The air shimmered about the ground in Hinamizawa, rippling and glittering like the belly of some mythic dragon. Cars passed by but rarely, perhaps once every hour or so, if that, and they drove slow, with whatever air conditioning they might have on full-throttle. No one was out moving among the fields, or trotting along the path to the school. Even the constant buzz and drone of the cicadas was lazy, muted, muffled by the incredible heat.

In the mountains it was only, _slightly_ , better. Trees provided shade, but the sticky heat and humidity persisted all the same, as though the air was a swamp or a sauna, the heat cloying in the air and refusing to let the sweat slicking many a club member's skin evaporate.

Keiichi groaned and turned his head slightly, back (bare back, shirts were _too much_ today) laid against the marginally-cooler boards of Mion's back porch, blinking without energy as Rika, floating faceup in the small decorative pool for what little good it did her (the water was shallow and tepid and probably not very good for her to be in), echoed his weary groan after a few beats, Hanyuu following them both with a softer but heartfelt whine as she gently floated beside her cousin.

Satoko, slumped over the edge of a wicker chair and panting, had her pink button-up shirt undone to proportions that would be absolutely indecent in a girl old enough to actually have developed a chest, her shorts rolled up so high that the roll was almost bigger than the thin strip of denim left over covering her thighs. Rena was leaned against a tree, occasionally vaguely flapping her kilted-up white skirt, too smothered by the heat for anything more energetic.

Shion, hair bundled up in a rough bun, was lying facedown on the porch a little ways away from Keiichi, further under the shade, her cheek pressed miserably against the smooth wood. Satoshi, the lucky bastard, had been kidnapped by Doctor Irie for a routine checkup at the clinic, the _air-conditioned clinic_ , and though no one in the club would ordinarily have any compunctions about barging in and luxuriating in the blissfully cool space, there were a number of cases of heat stroke and other such concerns for the more senior citizens and, well, they were young. They could cope with a little heat.

__

Keiichi groaned again and turned his head the other way. Who was he kidding, they were all going to _melt_ before the day was done, he was gonna melt right on through the cracks between the wooden boards underneath his skin.

__

Sticking his face in the freezer had seemed like a good idea, but his mom had whacked Keiichi over the head with her spatula and threatened him out of the house –apparently keeping the door open wasted a lot of energy, and energy bills were evidently quite fearsome enough already.

__

Drifting listlessly through the town, he'd met the others, and they'd all slowly congregated towards Mion's house, only to be told she was doing some hush-hush family business they weren't allowed to even know about. Too tired and hot to move, they'd all just sprawled in the backyard to wait for their leader, groaning occasionally to vent their discomfort as the summer sun baked and baked and _baked_ , until the whole world seemed to be condensed into a single unit of oppressive _heat_.

__

"Geez, it's hot out." Mion's voice came, sounding a trifle surprised as the sliding door open, and Keiichi grunted vaguely in acknowledgement, flapping a lackluster hand as he hazily opened his eyes.

__

"Done with the meeting, Onee?" Shion groaned against the boards, turning her head a little to look up at her twin.

__

"Indeed." Mion's face was oddly chipper, and she broke out into a smile as she brought something around from her back. "And look what I got~"

__

Keiichi's cloudy periwinkle eyes suddenly sharpened and narrowed into pinpoint focus.

__

She

__

Had.

__

_**Popsicles**_.

__

He was not even cognizant of the individual movements, only that he was suddenly pressed up against Mion's leg like a penitent slumped against the statue of a god, clutching pathetically at the bottom of her T-shirt, and Shion was right there beside him, their pleading voices overlapping as there was a sudden and violent-sounding splash from the decorative pond, and several sets of footsteps hurrying towards them. "Alright, alright, geez!" Mion laughed, willingly surrendering the glorious, glorious sweet icy treats to the pile of her club members as they swarmed her. "There's more in the cooler if you want 'em!"

__

Keiichi near swooned. The noises he made, that they all made, were borderline _obscene_ as they tore off wrappers and jammed the popsicles back into their collective throats as far as they would go, ecstatically worshipping at the altar of Frozen Fruity Bliss as cold enveloped them. (His was watermelon-flavored, and hot _damn_ watermelon had never tasted so good.)

__

"So," Mion laughed as she plopped down beside him, calmly licking at the tip of her blueberry-flavored confection. "You guys were hot?"

__

The brunet stopped sucking on the rod of heavenly iciness. "Mion…you have _no idea_." he said with feeling, and she laughed, swinging her legs lightly as she watched her friends eagerly devour the cheap icy-pops she had bought them.

__

Next time there was a heatwave, she should do this again, and bring a camera.

__


	59. Day 29: Spellbinding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I mangled at least three passages of _Return of the King_ for this one, but so what. It's a good scene and I couldn't just have everyone show up without some sort of speech from their leader. Maybe someday I'll really go nuts and write an AU of Higurashi for LOTR.

In rode the Lady of the Yamainu. A great black shape against the fires beyond she loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lady of the Yamainu, under the _torii_ that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before her face.

All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, stood Hanyuu beside Rika: Rika who alone among the free mortals of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in the Furude Saiguden.

"You cannot enter here," said Rika, flinging out her hand as her priestly raiment shifted, and the huge shadow halted. "Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!"

The Black Rider flung back her hood, and behold! she had a queenly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The amber fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

"Young fool!" she said. "Young fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that she lifted high her poisoned sword and flames ran down the blade.

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Gifu's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing, flags and standards flapping in the wind as they unfurled before a great charge, a charge of men and horses never seen in those latter days. Mion and Shion of the Sonozaki kingdom, Keiichi of the Maebara hold, Satoko and Satoshi of the Hojo clan, Rena of the Ryugu horsemasters, all had come at last to answer the call and the prayers of their true friend.

Mion Sonozaki lifted high her mithril sword as her commanding voice echoed over the plain. "Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising, I came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall! Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!" she cried mightily, and was answered as the roar upon the ocean at the height of a tempest, as the thunder upon lightening-strewn heights, as the cry of valorous warriors rose above the shrieking of the dying and the fell howls of the undead.


	60. Day 30: Silly Sports (2019)

"Think fast, Kei-chan!"

Keiichi didn't think fast enough, and a well-packed snowball smacked him upside the face.

"Gah!" he screeched, clutching at it and raking the powdery, wet clinging stuff from his eyes. "Mion!" he roared at the smirking club leader behind her scarf, whose teal eyes glittered with a wicked innocence. "How dare you try to challenge me as unchallenged King of the Castle?"

"That lack of challenge is about to be challenged!" she called up the small ramp of snow, tossing another expertly-packed snowball up and down in her mittened hand as the club leader's eyes gleamed even brighter. "Prepare to be upstaged, King!"

" _Never!_ " Keiichi howled down the parapet, brandishing his mighty icicle-sword. "Minions, _attack!_ "

With a ferocious battlecry (kind of) Rika and Satoshi rose up from the battlements of snow beside him and hurled their missiles down, as lusty and furious battle was thus engaged.

* * *

"You…have beaten me." Keiichi coughed weakly from his place in the snow, a convenient icicle lodged between his armpit and chest. "And so I, the…the Snow King, die at your feet."

"Keiichi-kun! No!" Satoshi cried, falling to his knees and clutching at the snow-spattered "wound" adjacent to Keiichi's icicle. "You must not lose hope! Fight on! We still need you in the battle!"

"No, no…" Weakly the fallen king waved him aside, coughing a little. "My time…has come, brave Satoshi. Avenge me!" The brown-haired Magician of the Mouth suddenly spasmed, arching up as a dramatically outflung arm pointed away, to the huffing and puffing Mion a few meters away as she dodged Rika's calculated shots. "Do not let… _koff_ …the sacred Kingdom of…um…of the Kingdom that is ours fall into the hands of the wicked invaders. _Koff!_ "

Keiichi turned his head to the side and hacked into the snow, scarf dislodged by the blow that had felled him. He weakly opened his periwinkle eyes again, looking into the tormented gaze of his most loyal vassal as Satoshi gripped his gloved hand. "Satoshi-kun…you must lead them now. Lead our people to victory! For I…at least…shall not see it. _Koff!_ "

With one final wheeze, as though making a point, Keiichi went limp, eyes hazing closed. The icicle tucked between arm and body wobbled a little as his muscles relaxed, before Keiichi quickly squeezed his arm closer to his side to prevent it from falling and ruining the illusion.

"Keiichi-kun! Keiichi-kun!" Satoshi cried desperately, shaking his liege lord. "Nooooooooo!"

* * *

_"-ooooo!"_

"Gya-ha-ha-ha!" Satoko cackled from atop her massive fort, fanged tooth gleaming even underneath her scarf as boulders of snow rolled towards her frantically dodging opponents. "Tremble before the might of Satoko the Snow Lord! Dance, pitiful fools, dance!"

"We need backup!" Shion cried from a hastily-enacted snow trench as one of the snow missiles thundered by, clutching a bucket down low over her head, icicle lying abandoned close by her side.

"I can't!" Rena gasped from another scoop in the snow dug a little farther along, laid almost flat with Hanyuu huddled trembling beside her. A plastic sled was hastily drawn over the two of them as some meager protection against the constant barrage, held in place by the stubborn auburn-haired soldier. "We're pinned down over here!"

"Hau, hauhau!" Hanyuu squealed, mittened hands clamped over her shapeless wool hat as she cowered underneath the thin shield. "We can't hold out for much longer!"

"Damnit, no!" Shion cried, jerking her head up a little under the bucket, but quickly cowering back down, crouching as a large snowball bounced over her head, eyes wide and glistening with determination –and tears. "You guys aren't allowed to die, you hear me!? Make it out of there if you have to _crawl_ the way back!"

"We can't!" Rena yelped, as another heavy snowball pummeled the ground next to her and Hanyuu, sending up a brief spray of powdery white. "Shi-chan, just go! Leave us behind! Get back to safety, don't think about us!"

" _Damnit!_ " Shion snarled, lunging out of her cover and sprinting across the battlefield, charging through the barrage of snowballs as she wove in and out of the dangerous hail like a ballet dancer, ice crystals sparkling and flashing in the air around her. Her icicle flashed in her right gloved hand, and her left held the bucket down tight over her head. "I won't leave you guys!"

" _Fools!_ " Satoko thundered from on high, red eyes gleaming in a way that rather clashed with the childish pom-pom atop her knitted hat. "To come charging into my hellish playground is to invite your own demise! _None of you shall escape here alive!_ "

"Yaaaaah!" Shion screamed in retaliation, throwing her icicle like a spear. It stuck point-first, quivering, in the snowy wall of Satoko's fort near where the snowballs emerged, and whatever Shion had hit, it gave both her and her comrades enough time to dive into better cover before the temporary pause in missiles ended and the snowy barrage came again, flying thicker than ever. Shion dived behind a large snowdrift, wallowing a deeper hole with frantic twists of her body, and Rena and Hanyuu scrambled for a place where the snow had blown high against a water barrel, huddling against it in the safe hollow scooped out by nature and the winds.

"We need to take out her cannons!" Rena cried, clutching Hanyuu to herself like a teddy bear.

"I know!" Shion screamed back, clutching her bucket-helmet as she pressed her body full-length down against the snow. "But I lost my weapon giving us time to run!"

"We're done for! We're done for!" Hanyuu wailed, tears pouring down her cherubic cheeks and soaking into her checkered scarf.

"No!" Rena cried, blue eyes sparkling with determination. "Keiichi-kun is out there! He's in an alliance with us –he won't let us down! I know it!"

* * *

Satoshi brandished the icicle that had slain his king. "Muu, y-you'll pay for that!" he shouted at Mion, wishing his voice didn't tremble so much as he threatened his club president. "Rika-chan, fall back!"

The young _miko_ did so, keeping up a steady barrage of snowballs to pin Mion down, until she finally leaped behind the snowy ramparts and hunkered down with him. "Mew, what is it, Satoshi?" she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the bush Mion had dived behind for cover, a snowball ready in her tiny hand.

Satoshi swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry, but…the King didn't recover from the wound he, erm, received battling the Ice Demon. He's fallen."

"Curse you, Snow Demon!" Rika cried, hurling her snowball at the bush for emphasis as it exploded into harmless powder on the tough evergreen branches. "What shall we do, Regent Satoshi?!"

Satoshi blinked twice. "Regent?" he asked behind his scarf, confused. Rika groaned quietly to herself as she fished for another snowball.

"Mew, Keiichi did name you as his successor, didn't he?"

"Muu…I guess he did." Satoshi sighed after a moment of consideration.

"Then you're the regent." Rika replied firmly, hurling a snowball at Mion's bush as it gave a stealthy rustle, as if their green-haired president was considering movement. "Don't you dare, Snow Demon!"

"Y-yeah!" Satoshi cried, waving his hand in what he hoped was a vengeful and authoritative gesture. "We're the regents in King's name, and we'll never let you capture our fort, you, erm, evil Ice Demon!"

"I thought I was a Snow Demon?" Mion asked with a snicker from her hiding place, and Rika frowned.

"It works either way. Whatever you are, we won't forgive you! You hear me?!" The young _miko_ shook her tiny fist at Mion's hiding place. "We shall never forget your wicked deed, Snow Demon!"

Satoshi shook his icicle again for emphasis, then crouched down behind the ramparts to think desperately as Rika kept watch upon the battlements. What could he do? Keiichi was their best warrior, and he'd been cut down easily by the fierce and terrible Snow/Ice Demon. Satoshi was nowhere near as capable as he was, and furthermore, if he fell, then it would only be Rika standing between Mion and victory. Ideally, they could grab their flag and make a run for Shion, Rena, and Hanyuu's forces, but they were dealing with Satoko, and…

Wait…

Of course!

"Muu, Rika-chan!" Satoshi commanded, pulling his head up a little as he tugged down on his knitted cap. "Keep Mion busy! I have an idea!"

"Of course! Nipah~" Rika chirped, beaming. Then her expression darkened as she turned and launched a barrage of small, well-packed snowballs at the bush, hand-over-hand, arms swiveling like a pair of tiny windmills. "Yaaaaaaaah!"

Satoshi, meanwhile, jumped down to the bottom of their fort to build a trap.

* * *

"You can't keep me pinned down like this forever!" Mion cackled from her now decidedly snow-caked bush, likely braced against the branches in the back. "You'll run out of snow eventually!"

True enough, Rika was starting to have to search frantically for enough snow to pack into a ball within her arm's reach –moving away too far would create a gap in her defenses, and allow Mion to dart out from the other side of the bush. And that would mean they would lose.

"Mew, Satoshi, are you done with your plan yet?" she asked quietly but nervously, scrunching her shoulders inside her thick coat.

"Yup." she heard quietly from behind her. "Rika-chan, can you do me favor and make, like, as much noise as you can, and keep Mion in place for about twenty seconds, on my count?"

"Mew~! Of course!"

"Right."

Rika quickly scooped together as many small palmfuls of snow as she could gather in one space, planning for another large barrage to pin Mion down. "Ready, sir!"

"On the count of three… _now!_ " Satoshi cried, and Rika immediately filled her small lungs and shouted as loudly as she could, pummeling the beleaguered shrub as it quivered and shook under her rain of snowballs. She _thought_ she heard an odd _twong_ and a scrape of snow behind her, and Rika's hair stood on end beneath her cap as something whooshed over her head, but she was too busy focusing on keeping Mion pinned down to look to see what it was.

Right until a gigantic snowball that was only a little bit smaller than Rika herself plummeted down out of empty air, slamming into the other side of the bush as Mion gave a brief, startled cry that was swiftly muffled, likely by a mouthful of packed snow.

Rika turned around, jaw a little loose, to see Satoshi kneeling beside a dip in the snow roughly the same size as the snow-boulder, as well as a contraption made from a discarded snow shovel, his scarf, a miraculously-uncovered inflated dodgeball, and several other things that she couldn't see clearly.

"Satoshi…how on earth did you do that?"

The blond teen smiled as Mion thrashed her way out of the small mountain of snow, visibly sulking at her defeat. "Well…one doesn't live in a house with Satoko without learning a thing or two." he said modestly.

"Now let's go help Shion and the others."

* * *

"We need a plan!" Rena shouted desperately. She, Hanyuu, and Shion had managed to worm their way closer to the fortress, but they were still a good ways off and nowhere near to capturing the flag. Hanyuu had dived under the leafless skeleton of a bush, which was at least catching most of the snow from the boulders being hurled at and around her, and Rena had picked up another sled en route and was cowering behind her makeshift bulwark like a knight with a shield.

"I know!" Shion cried back, likewise pinned down behind a slender tree. "If we just had a way to take out her cannons-!"

" _Rejoice, friends!_ For we have come to honor our treaty!"

Shion, Rena, and Hanyuu's heads whipped around. Satoko gaped from atop her snowy battlements.

Satoshi and Rika were posed atop the slope that led to the battlegrounds, a shaft of light illuminating their snow-dusted clothing and the icicles they proudly held aloft.

They were also on a gleaming blue sled.

"Your time has come, Shion, Rena, and Hanyuu! You shall no longer fight this terrible foe alone! _Yaaaaaah!_ "

With a shove from Rika, who sat in the back of the sled, the two began rocketing down the hill. With a shrill cry from Satoko and some incomprehensible manipulation of the traps in her snowy fortress, the hail of missiles was redirected towards the charging duo.

Who were entirely prepared for this action.

"Yaaaaaaaaah!" Satoshi continued to yell, grabbing a projection from the side of the sled and whipping it up and out in front of him, to reveal –another sled.

Which the hail of missiles crashed into, leaving him and Rika to continue, albeit slowed, streaking down the slope.

"Mew, Shi, catch!" Rika called, grabbing another sled and hurling it at the cowering Sonozaki. Shion caught the bright red plastic disk with a grin, and her teal eyes glinted as she looked at Rena, whose own eyes flashed in understanding.

"Yaaaaah!" they cried in addition, grabbing their shields and charging towards the fort in the wake of Satoshi and Rika's sled-cavalry. An additional sled hurled towards Hanyuu (perhaps with a bit more playful vehemence than Shion's) added another member to their headlong charge, and Satoko snorted with fury, twin streams of smoky air escaping from beneath her scarf.

"Block my boulders all you like, none of you will scale my castle!" she roared furiously, waving an icicle of her own above her head and then turning and leaping down with a flare of her padded winter coat, disappearing within the snowy depths to conjure up more diabolic trickery.

Satoshi and Rika crashed up against the base of the fort, and Shion's group arrived a few moments later.

"We need to scale the walls!" Satoshi cried, and Shion nodded, tightening her bucket-helmet on her head.

"Got it. Use our icicles!" She took Rika's and demonstratively stabbed the pointed end into the snowy wall at about knee-height for the older club members. "Go, go, go!"

"Use multiple strategies!" Rika cried from behind Satoshi as Hanyuu started clambering up the makeshift staircase, adding her own icicle to gain height as Rena tossed her another.

"Right!" the auburn-headed warrior cried, lifting up her shield and crouching under it. The tiny _miko_ seized Shion's smaller, round shield and jumped onto the platform Rena had made, letting Rena surge upwards and launch Rika towards the sky, bearing her own shield in case of errant missiles. This concern was well-founded, for a smaller but still formidable snowball crashed into the blue-haired child –and more importantly, her shield– almost as soon as she had cleared the battlements, sending Rika falling backwards onto the shattered no-man's-land with a shrill cry as her patterned scarf waved in the wake of her fall. Hanyuu was halfway up the wall, crouching down beneath the battlements nervously, afraid to breach the top that had already almost claimed the life of her comrade –her shield lay below her in the snow, discarded.

"Rena!" Shion cried, plucking up said shield and dashing towards the still-crouching Rena as she grinned and nodded, lowering herself a little more.

"Go, Shi-chan!" she cried in encouragement, and Shion stepped onto the shield and was propelled upwards. Satoshi hastily dismounted from his own, grabbed it, and hunkered down beneath the plastic rectangle, ready for Rika, who came running back as she leapt onto his own platform. The shrine maiden sailed upwards a beat behind Shion, and Hanyuu watched as both crowned the battlements. Another well-placed snowball struck Rika backwards once again, but Shion was larger and less susceptible to a change in momentum, and merely was thrown backwards as she scrabbled frantically for the edge of the snowy battlements, dug into it with the gloved hand not desperately holding up her shield, and caught herself, half-draped over the edge.

With a grunt, despite the concentrated barrage of snowballs quickly aimed towards her position in a bid to prevent that very action, Shion hauled herself up over the verge, keeping her shield propped up before her as she did. Indeed, the heavy pelting of snowballs actually served to help that purpose, for as long as she made sure it wouldn't be pushed back, Shion didn't have to spend a mote of effort actually keeping the shield propped _up_.

Curled up behind the shield, Shion shuffled clumsily sideways, covering the ascent of Hanyuu, who quickly clambered up over the ramparts as well and huddled behind the Sonozaki.

"Hau, hauhau, what do we do now?!"

Rena began carefully climbing up the icicles, holding her shield parallel to her body to cover herself as she crested Satoko's line of vision. "Try to draw her fire! We can beat her, just as long as we hold the castle wall!"

"Keep a line of defense, and keep pushing forward!" Satoshi cried behind her, and before long the entire group was huddled in a line behind a series of plastic sled-shields atop Satoko's fort, feeling a barrage of heavy, wet-packed snowballs thud into their barrier.

"Spartan shields!" Shion shouted over the _thud_ of artillery. "Overlap the edges, damnit! Overlap _now!_ "

With a bit of shuffling, everyone got themselves sorted into that configuration, but they knew it couldn't last for long. Satoko was bound to eventually think of the same trick Satoshi and Rika had used to defeat Mion, and their shields were no good against a direct overhead assault _and_ a constant frontal barrage.

"Hanyuu!" Rena grunted, teeth clenched together and blue eyes focused and intense as she held her portion of the shield-wall up firm. "Try to peek through the edges and see where she is! If we can just get her with a snowball…"

Doing as she was told, Hanyuu squirmed underneath Satoshi's arm and peeped through a slight gap in the interlocked sleds. "Hau, she's standing behind three catapults, everyone. Its right in the middle of the fort! I can't see her flag though…"

"Knowing Satoko, she's hidden it somewhere." Rika said with a frown as an especially heavy snowball impacted her shield, jolting her back a little. "Do you think if we all make a break at once and circle around the edges of the fort with our shields, where the catapults can't reach-"

"Satoko will have prepared for that." Shion said grimly, pulling her bucket-helmet a little tighter down on her head with one hand. "She had no way of knowing which direction we'd attack the fort from, after all. I bet there are a bunch of traps set up to trip us on the inside of the fort, too."

"Satoko would've laid out a series of paths for her to walk along." Satoshi pointed out, breath huffing in clouds from under his scarf. "We know the battlements are probably safe over here, because we're sitting here now and nothing's happened, and Satoko had to get down there somehow."

"Mew, follow her footprints in the snow?" Rika tried.

"Too obvious." Rena's eyes narrowed. "This is Satoko –she loves bluffs and double-bluffs. Sure, she would've left some kind of path, but which one is the _safe_ one…"

That was, indeed, a conundrum. There were several trails meandering over the snow, some of single footprints, some of many, but the general area of the fort's interior was so mussed and packed down that it was impossible to pick out a safe path, or even a definite one.

"Perhaps if we picked one and shuffled along it single-file…" Satoshi mused aloud, his eyebrows furrowing above his scarf as he frowned in concentration.

"One of us is going to be picked off for sure if we do that." Shion argued as powdery snow sprayed over the top of their shield wall. "Definitely the person in front, at least. And where would we even look for the flag? It has to be in the fort, but we can't see it anywhere, and we can't just go wandering around searching for it."

"Let's just destroy her canons for now, everyone." Rika piped up, violet eyes wide and innocent from within her bundle of woolen wrappings. "Even Satoko only has so many traps here –if we get rid of the canons, she has to deploy her next line of defense, and with these shields, we can hold out against pretty much everything."

Rena brightened. "Yeah, I like that! If we pick off her traps one by one, eventually we'll get her to the point where she has to be throwing snowballs herself, and not only do we outnumber her for that, we'll still have our shields! We'll be practically invulnerable!"

Shion's eyes narrowed. " _If_ we can pull it off…this is still the God-Sent Master of Traps, after all. And you can bet she'll have traps that are only set off when you step on them. We'll take her out, and all her projectile weaponry, but there's still the ground cover to deal with as we search for the flag. And it could be _anywhere_ in here."

"That's a problem we can deal with when we get to it." Rena said determinedly. How do we take out her canons?"

"Muu…" Satoshi peeked through a gap in the shield wall, then looked around them. "Well, there's more than enough snow here to form a barrage of snowballs…"

* * *

The battle was long and arduous, but, eventually, the combined teams managed to break down each line of Satoko's defense, destroying and triggering trap after trap as they clawed their way forward. Hanyuu was taken out by a snare trap, hoisting her up high in the air and making her lose her shield, subsequently helpless to Satoko's snowballs, and Rena sacrificed herself to let Shion duck behind an attack, going down in an explosion of loose-packed snow.

Satoko herself, frothing and raging, was finally taken out by a well-placed snowball from her brother, who sat by the sulking younger blonde, consoling her, as the others spread out in cautious search for the flag.

"I found it!" Rika squeaked at length, scuffling in the snow and coming up with a bright red-and-black checkered dishcloth. "Mew, we win, Regent Satoshi!"

Satoshi looked up from where he was patting his sister. "Oh –er, yay!" he capitulated belatedly, throwing one hand up in the air. "Victory for the Snow Kingdom's forces!"

"Aw, man…" Shion pouted, leaning carefully against a safe scrap of the wall. "Since your team has the most people left, that's a double-win for you, isn't it!"

"I told you not to underestimate the mighty powers of the Snow Kingdom!" Keiichi cried in triumph from the top of the wall, startling the rest of the club, and beside him, Mion rolled her eyes.

"Yes, yes, whatever." she drawled, waving a gloved hand dismissively at him. "I do hereby declare as Club President that Keiichi, Satoshi, and Rika win this game, having not only found the opposing flag but also having the most people left over on their team. Second is Hanyuu, Shion, and Rena's team, as they did not have a fort or flag to defend but still managed to leave one survivor on their team. And last…" She audibly gritted her teeth under her scarf. "…is me and Satoko's team, with both of us KO-ed and our flag captured."

Mion then clapped her gloved hands together with false cheer, smiling brightly under her scarf. "So then! Back to my place for hot cocoa and so on, and we'll decide the punishment games there?"

"That sounds great." Rena yawned, shivering a little.

"Yesssss…" Keiichi cackled under his breath, rubbing his mittened hands together. "Revenge will soon be mine, Mion! You'll regret all the crossplay costumes you forced me into! _You'll rue the day you put me in a mini-skirt!_ "

He cackled louder, but then grunted as Satoko punched his stomach, passing by. "Yes, yes, your vengeance is nigh." she huffed, then smirked. "Don't forget we _all_ had a vote on whether or not to put you in those costumes, Keiichi-san…you have a long way to go before _true_ vengeance. Oh-ho-ho~!"

She cackled in her turn, skipping lightly down the staircase of icicles as Keiichi sulked behind her.

Hot cocoa sounded real good right about now.

Maybe he could dump it on her head.


	61. Day 1: Introduction (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I feel like that Shrek meme. 2020, can you stop trying to kill everyone for FIVE MINUTES?!
> 
> In plainer speech, for those of y'all that don't already know this, I live in a suburb of Minneapolis and as most people probably know things are going a bit crazy here, with riots and looting and so on stacked on top of the pandemic and our latest outrage of police brutality and racism. I’m doing okay, and feeling a bit sad that I can’t go show support with all the other people peacefully protesting, but my parents would FREAK if I went downtown right now. And I will admit that even as a white person, I’m still more than a little freaked myself about police retaliation against any protests I might partake in. 
> 
> Alas, the only thing I can do is try to lift people’s spirits with my preplanned Higurashi content, and announce my wholehearted support for the braver people standing up for justice in my city over this past week.
> 
> Black Lives Matter!
> 
> And on the note of my preplanned content, I'm keeping the Higurashi Month tradition going! This is technically the first year I've posted it on AO3, but, well...I had to put in all the other stuff in advance, obviously. Enjoy!
> 
> 1\. Introduction  
> 2\. Complicated  
> 3\. Making History  
> 4\. Rivalry  
> 5\. Unbreakable  
> 6\. Obsession  
> 7\. Eternity  
> 8\. Gateway  
> 9\. Death  
> 10\. Opportunities  
> 11\. 33%  
> 12\. Dead Wrong  
> 13\. Running Away  
> 14\. Judgment  
> 15\. Seeking Solace  
> 16\. Excuses  
> 17\. Vengeance  
> 18\. Love  
> 19\. Tears  
> 20\. My Inspiration  
> 21\. Never Again  
> 22\. Online  
> 23\. Failure  
> 24\. Rebirth  
> 25\. Breaking Away  
> 26\. Forever and a Day  
> 27\. Lost and Found  
> 28\. Light  
> 29\. Dark  
> 30\. Faith

Miyo Takano stood on the cusp of a hill and inhaled deeply, slowly, savoringly, tasting each separate aroma wrought on the humid summer air. She wondered if she could taste the virus slowly permeating her very being in the oxygen she breathed, something salty that tasted of fear and despair.

Perhaps there was nothing. Perhaps she was just (stifle a grin) _hallucinating_.

Miyo Takano knows she is a beautiful woman, and she’s used it to her advantage more times than she cares to think about. Her lovely, slender fingers _itch_ with the need to get at the secrets stored away in this remote little corner of Japan, the secrets that her grandpa had worked so hard to unearth and discover, her digits tingling and twitching in the bright summer air.

She walks down the hill, smiling and nodding to the villagers she passes on the way, the very picture of a demure, helpful nurse heading to her brand-new positing in the recently-built clinic. She grins to herself when she thinks of what hides beneath these kindly false faces, wrinkled and sunbrowned from long years of work in the surrounding fields. That grandmotherly woman on the corner, should her Syndrome awaken, what form would it take? Does she have grandchildren that will beg and plead and scream as she hacks at them with a knife, splattering those kindly wrinkles with red red blood? Or perhaps a husband she’s loved for many years, and she’ll scream decades’ worth of insecurities at him as she bludgeons him with a chair, perhaps?

Miyo wants to find out, but alas, it would probably be frowned upon at the facility. Hiring Doctor Irie may have been a mistake, but he was young and eager, full of the want to prove himself, and so hopelessly naïve he may as well be butter in her lovely, manicured hands. Her backers wanted her to have someone in charge, however meaninglessly, and Miyo will take naivete over actual competence, at least for a little while.

Miyo Takano makes her introductions to the village of Hinamizawa, with plans ticking away in the back of her mind, and her smile is that of a snake’s, preparing to eat the eggs of the bird its facing.


	62. Day 2: Complicated (2020)

Hanyuu stares at the wide-eyed figure lying on the futon that she sits before, legs crossed and as intangible as a wisp, with pursed lips and a furrowed brow. Rika is as enthusiastic and chatty as any child her age, a mere slip of a girl of seven, and she wants to _know_ , know so much, about Hanyuu, about where Hanyuu is from, why no one else can see or hear the fretful lilac-haired girl that nipped at her heels.

Some of those answers, Hanyuu can give, and does, without deceit.

Others she gives, but dissembles, a little, masking their true and bloody connotations. Such a tiny child, with stars in her eyes, should not hear of the men and women ripped bloodily apart on Hanyuu’s altar, should not know that it was a ritual that even now Rika’s revered father mimics as he dances the offering dance in the shrine.

Still more she tries to give, but there is only so much a child can comprehend.

The last few she keeps quiet and close to her heart, and does not speak of, no matter how much the tiny shrine maiden begs and pleads.

That is, however, a very small number, and most of her answers are awkward things that she can only try to voice and explain. Rika is mortal and she is not, Hanyuu has _senses_ that Rika does not, has experiences that the adorable small _miko_ cannot comprehend. Japanese is too clumsy and too thick on her tongue to try and explain, words falling short, and Rika simply does not have the senses to understand the concepts and thoughts Hanyuu could otherwise force upon her mind. It would be like explaining the sensation of winged flight to a snail, swimming to a desert jackal; Rika simply does not have the organs, the faculties, the ability, as a _human_ , to understand the otherworldly knowledge Hanyuu has.

So Hanyuu merely sighs, and begins to attempt to explain her home once again.


	63. Day 3: Making History (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only really discussed in full in the manga and not the anime (I’ve yet to play the games in any form), but the reason Takano’s research was downtrodden despite his wealthy influential friend liking it is because, allegedly (this is a historical point I’m not good on) Japan got involved in WWII due to fighting with China, and the inciting incident was a gunfight at a bridge. As far as I know, the true inciter is currently still unknown, but China and Japan have both argued that the other shot first: though, again, I don’t really know for myself, _Higurashi_ frames the question of who shot first as a matter of legitimacy for the other side. It also states that a soldier from Hinamizawa was at the bridge incident, so therefore, if Hinamizawa Syndrome was to become public knowledge, it would inevitably lead to the public conclusion that there was a very high possibility that that soldier may have been responsible for the inciting shot, thus badly damaging Japan’s defensive claims that China shot first. Hence, politicians in Japan put pressure on Koizumi to shut Hifumi Takano up and also discredited his thesis as much as possible, which we did see in the anime.

Such a small thing. A small, meaningless thing.

Or, perhaps, not such a small thing after all.

Unseen by Koizumi-sensei, her fist clenches under the table.

This, she wants to scream and spit at the world, _this_ is why her beloved Grandfather’s valuable research was cast into shame and obscurity?

_Politics?_

The greedy squabblings of a few stupid, rich old men. That was what had driven the man who had taken her in from that hellish orphanage and treated her as his own blood to work himself into an early grave.

 ** _Politics_**.

Realistically, the analytical part of her mind argues, their decision does make a certain amount of sense. Horrific things had spread across the world as a result of what many were calling the Second World War. Many deaths and much suffering had been cast by Japan’s involvement. It was not irrational to try to shift the blame for getting involved to begin with –to avoid it, in this case, rather. 

But _still_.

It made her teeth grind.

There were terrible, unforeseen possibilities in the disease her Grandfather had _tried_ to bring to light in the world. Her research –it could shake the foundations of religion, of the understanding of civilized thought. In the future it created, the mindset and beliefs of today may very well become as laughable, as primitive as those early cavemen trying to cut holes in each other’s skulls to let out the wicked spirits that “caused” mental illnesses. A parasite in the brain? It sounded like the work of science fiction, and yet: so had the idea the earth revolved around the sun, so had the idea that diseases were caused by germs, so had many, many other things that existed before science fiction and yet now, despite a thousand howls of blind _stupid_ old politicians, had become widely accepted fact.

There was a Belgian, she believed, a Nobel Prize winner by the name of Maurice Maeterlinck, and in one of her textbooks as a child she had run across an interesting phrase of his.

_“At every crossway on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.”_

Guarding the past was all very well and good, and those fat old fools could do it until they fell into their own graves and became part of the past they so dogmatically protected. What Miyo _took issue with_ was their attempts to meddle with her future, the chosen future of every human being on earth. Hinamizawa Syndrome, and its accompanying viral branches, were a discovery that would rock worlds. Human understanding would be shattered. They would _learn_ so much, probe so much deeper into the root of all human thought and religion, perhaps unlock the very secrets of life and death themselves. It wasn’t impossible: a disease that altered thoughts, what did that mean for the human soul? For the afterlife? For gods and spirits and demons and a thousand other things people had _thought_ they’d seen?

And standing there, a block between her and that wonderous, glorious future that spread out endlessly like a jeweled tapestry climbing up a mountain, was a few dozen, no more, a few dozen dozing, complacent, balding politicians more concerned with covering their ample seats than anything else. There were nonentities, and could have been produced in a factory for all their mind-numbing similarities. 

Wealthy, wanting more. One or two vices, bordering from the venial to the truly corrupt. Male, usually at least slightly overweight. Stern glances and inflexible opinions. Marginally devoted to their family and charity in front of cameras, obsessed with the delicate dance of gaining and building political and temporal power every other second of every other day.

It was _infuriating_. There wasn’t a single damn one of them who wouldn’t be repeated down the line of history, endlessly, like a parade of stupid little clockwork dolls that never changed or did anything truly worthwhile except, maybe, keep the country running.

It grated on her beyond belief that these men were capable of blocking her path.

So obsessed with making history, of changing it, of hiding it, that they denied the future.

Well, she’d show them. She’d show them all.

They could bury Hinamizawa Syndrome as deep as they liked: she’d rip it out of the world and carve the proof of its existence out in bloody letters so that no one, no civilian, no foreigner, and no _politicians_ would be able to deny the history she’d made.

And with Koizumi-sensei’s help, she’d get there soon.


	64. Day 4: Rivalry (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something they don’t mention much in the anime/manga series as far as I know, but Mion and Shion, after the accidental tattoo/identity-switch, more or less spent the entire rest of their lives pretending to be each other. Aspects of their twin’s personality would’ve rubbed off on both of their psyches, which you kinda can pick up on in the anime and manga. Shion’s feminine act is basically how Mion thinks beneath all the layers of toughness, and once things get serious, Shion drops her dainty little act and will WRECK a bitch. Also during the Eye-Opening arc and throughout most of the sister’s private interactions, you can generally see that Shion views Mion as having the weaker, shyer personality (and Mion lowkey acknowledges this), despite Mion being allegedly the older and tougher twin.

When Mion and Shion were very young, it was quietly understood that Shion was the twin that their relatives did not like. So Mion was a good big sister and shared her clothes and her name as often as may be, and they managed.

But together, alone, their relationship was a little different. Mion was competitive, always wanting to do this, better, more, faster, and Shion was her tentative tag-along. Mion would climb trees like a monkey and scramble through mountain ravines like a goat, while Shion waited anxiously beneath or at the top of the ridge, ready to sound an alarm if Mion slipped and fell.

And then, that fateful day came. Mion was no longer Mion. Shion was no longer Shion. Oh, they could still switch, but it wasn’t the _same_. People had a way to tell them apart now, a way that throbbed and pulsed painfully along Shion’s back.

So Shion that was Mion took Mion that was Shion to a tree, and pointed to it. “We need to teach you to climb.” she said. Shion that was Mion clutched her burning back and shook her head tearfully. She was only a child.

“They’re going to be suspicious if you don’t act like me.” Mion that had become Shion pointed out. “C’mon. Its easy. I’ll show you.”

And she did, she showed Shion-that-was-now-Mion where to put her feet, how to scramble up the tree like a monkey and punch the air with a giddy shriek when she was done. And Shion-that-was-now-Mion clung to the thick branch and offered Mion-that-was-now-Shion a tentative smile, and said “You know, this isn’t actually that bad. But if I’ve got to climb, you’ve got to stay on the ground.”

And Mion-that-was-now-Shion frowned a little. It chafed her, to stand on the ground and wring her hands as Shion-that-was-now-Mion climbed soaring trees and scrambled through interesting ravines with increasing confidence, leaving her behind. How had Shion _liked_ this?

The twins became known for pushing the boundaries, going farther and farther afield on the Sonozaki’s expansive property as they sought to find a play-place where they could resume their proper roles, where Shion-that-was-now-Mion could stay on the ground like she wanted, and Mion-that-was-now-Shion could climb to her heart’s content. And they found a few, but parents or Kasai would always find them to call them back, and what someone saw once, they could come up quietly to watch unseen again, and the twins had to move. Neither knew what would happen if their family found out about the switch, but neither Mion nor Shion thought it would be good.

But they found them, sometimes, and that was where the trouble, if it could be called that, started. Mion-that-was-now-Shion ran for the tree with a laugh and started up –and Shion-that-was-now-Mion was right behind her, clambering to the top. Silently, with flashes of teal eyes and clenched jaws and aggressive shifting of their small bodies, they challenged each other to climb higher, faster, _first_.

And Shion-that-was-now-Mion made it first with a laugh and a giddy grin, and Mion-that-was-now-Shion looked up at her from one limb down with a frown.

“How come you went first?” she asked. Shion-that-was-now-Mion tilted her head.

“I’m you now, aren’t I?” she asked, kicking her heels gently as Mion-that-was-now-Shion came to join her on the top branch. “I’ve got to act like you.”

“Well, yeah, but not…” Mion-that-was-now-Shion trailed off uncertainly, before she began again. “We’re alone. You don’t need to pretend.”

Shion-that-was-now-Mion’s grin softened, and she scratched her cheek a little. “Sorry…I guess its just become a habit.”

“I guess.” Mion-that-was-now-Shion did not understand why she didn’t like that. Was she becoming like Shion too, now? It _had_ become much easier to duck her head rather than flash defiance at someone when they scolded her lately…

A small twist of fear ignited in her heart. She was Mion! Shion was Shion! She shouldn’t be acting like Shion, and Shion shouldn’t be acting like her! It wasn’t fair! That wasn’t how this was supposed to work!

She was a good big sister now, and shifted uncomfortably on the branch. Hadn’t she always disliked Shion’s meekness? This was a good thing. Shion had broken out of her shell more permanently by having to pretend to be Mion for so long. That was _good_. And plus, didn’t she have someone to truly play with now…?

Mion-that-was-now-Shion grinned and nudged her sister. “Let’s try another tree! I bet I can beat you this time for sure!”

“You’re on!”

The twins became known as rabble-rousers, little hellions always darting off to play and compete against each other on the estate. Mion-that-was-now-Shion was careful not to win too often in their family’s sight, since that did not help her situation amongst them, but when she and her sister were off alone, well…

No holds were barred.

And that, perhaps, more than anything, was why Mion-that-was-now-Shion slyly teased Shion-that-was-now-Mion about this boy, Keiichi, that she liked, saying that they should have a competition to see who could seduce him first. After all, Shion’s façade was the inner Mion that he liked, and Mion’s façade was the inner Shion that still paced uncomfortably inside its restrictions.

She wanted to see if he would notice, and more than anything, it was a chance to tease her younger sister and start up another competition.


	65. Day 5: Unbreakable (2020)

It's strange what you think of when you're about to die.

Satoko thinks of the itchy splinter pressing into the small of her back. Maybe it's a protective mechanism, to shield her mind and psyche from the horrors around her, or maybe its _just that annoying_ , pressing and prickling insistently against her back through the cotton fabric of her pink shirt.

Most people wouldn't be able to think of a splinter when a knife is sinking into their arm, again and again and again, with wet squishing noises and spurts of blood and _oh Oyashiro-sama so much **pain**_ , but Satoko focuses and clenches her teeth around her wrenching cries of agony and _still_ that splinter manages to bother her.

Maybe it's because she doesn't know where else to focus. There's Mi-Shio- there's _someone_ in front of her, all clenched teeth and feral green eyes and a white kimono rapidly becoming soaked with blood _(Satoko's blood)_ and focusing on that makes Satoko want to cry for a variety of reasons, not the least of which that whoever this is, if they aren't a demon, they used to be one of her dearest friends. She can't look at this person, it's frightening and obscene and macabre, their emotions are so wild, so obvious as they play across this person's face that just looking at them is like looking into their soul, but she can't look away, because she is tied to a wooden structure with heavy chains and to look away is to see the dangling body of Kimiyoshi-ojisan, whose feet barely scrape the ground and whose neck is stretched out like that of a plucked chicken. Satoko should know, she's done plenty to prepare them for her and Rika's meals.

_Rika…_

Satoko fights the urge to cry as she feels the splinter jab insistently at her back. She watched Kimiyoshi-ojisan, and it had not been quick. She can still hear his garbled sounds and the vague _shushing_ of his feet as he scraped them against the ground, trying to find enough traction to push his body up and relieve his weight from the leather collar digging into his throat. She can still remember how he tried to smile at her, shaky and trembling, like he was trying to reassure her, and how utterly terrifying it had been, because to see the terror of looming death lurking inside an adult's eyes, the acceptance thereof, as they tried to reassure a child was the worst thing of all. Kimiyoshi-ojisan knew he'd been about to die, but he still tried to put up a façade to Satoko that it would be alright, that he would somehow be able to help her.

Chilling, and horrible.

And if she looks the other way, she can hear Mi-Shio- she can hear _someone_ in the echoing rocky darkness of the halls beyond, screaming and crying desperately to mix and meld with the mad cackles of her sister- this demon- _whatever_ this person was as she stabbed Satoko's arm over and over again, spraying this underground sanctum with blood. Apologies, endless and lament, like the cries of the sorrowing dead, echoed from those caves, but the person in front of Satoko did not stop, did not slow down.

Satoko recognized this scene. It was like with Satoshi and the old and weak her, the her that had cowered behind him and let him take countless blows as she did nothing but weep and apologize.

"I already knew about my sin…" she gasps into the ringing silence that falls after she nearly slips under and this person slaps her awake. "That Ni-Ni disappeared…because I couldn't stop clinging to him."

Satoko finally begins to cry.

"I was a spoiled brat. Even though Ni-Ni was bearing the brunt of everything, I still kept shoving all the responsibility onto his shoulders!"

"That's interesting." says the person before her that looks like one of her friends but isn't. "You already knew what your crime is."

"I'll show him how much I've matured, though!" Satoko snaps suddenly, ignoring the wet, hot drip of blood from her arm, the slow insistent burn of pain from all the cuts there. "I'll show him that I don't need to hide behind his back anymore! When Ni-Ni comes back, he won't come home to a deadweight!"

The terrible person laughs. "I sure hope he comes back, too!" they cackle.

Satoko shakes her tears away. Tears are weak and useless now, and she doesn't use them any more. "Ni-Ni will definitely come back!" she cries at this person. "I'll wait until he does! I'll apologize to him for relying on him so completely! I won't give up until then! No matter how much it hurts, I won't rely on him, not anymore! Nothing will change if I cry, so I'll endure it! I'll be strong!"

The person's mouth slowly gapes open as they run their tongue along their teeth, before they scowl. "I won't get cocky if I were you, kiddo."

"If stabbing me makes you happy, then do it as much as you want!" Satoko shouts back, clenching her fists and ready for pain. "But hear this: I won't cry!"

The blade comes again, sharp and fast like a thunderbolt, and Satoko shouts louder, her eyes dry.

"I won't cry! I won't cry!"

Sharp, pounding, constant, whittling her lifeforce down to nothing as blood spurts and drips over the wooden bars of the prop and this person's clothes as they shout and snarl and slam the knife into Satoko's arms again and again.

"Ni-Ni, are you watching?" Satoko gasps, her head lolling to the side as her own blood drips stickily down her face. "See how much stronger Satoko has become. No matter what happens, I won't give up!"

The stabbings become sharp, frenetic, nearly _frantic_ , as there is a strange, flickering gleam in this person's eyes. They weren't prepared for this. This isn't something they can deal with. They want her to stop. They want her to shut up. They want her to cry and scream like the weak fool she used to be. Then that person can deal with this, but Satoko stonewalling them, refusing to make a peep as the knife slid into the flesh of her arm again and again, this person can't deal with that. _They_ are weak, they are the ones relying on someone else now. Satoko's not like that anymore.

"Something like this can't make me cry. It can't make me cry." Satoko repeated. The splinter prickled her back as this person roared and swung the knife up, the gleaming blade heading straight for Satoko's face. "IT WON'T!"

A sick, fleshy _thud_ echoes in the underground chamber, as the blade of the knife slams home, right through Satoko's forehead.

And even in death, she doesn't cry.


	66. Day 6: Obsession (2020)

Deep inside a junkyard in the mountains, there is an old, beat-up panel van with rusted suspension and missing wheels. How it got there, who its prior owners were, this was all one of the many unspoken, unsolved mysteries of the junkyard. It was one of the things Rena loved about the old junkyard the most: who in Hinamizawa had ever had a panel van, and why had they thrown it away? Cars were expensive, and this one wasn’t that old. Why was it here, with glass windows intact and paint barely chipped?

She didn’t know. She would likely never know: if the owners hadn’t gossiped, the village didn’t know, and if the village didn’t know, no one would ever find out. Maybe it had been the property of one of the dam workers, but in that case, why was it left here, and why weren’t there any dents in it?

Regardless of any speculations or questioning on her part, this van was somehow here, a dead-end thread from the tangle of someone else’s life, and it was Rena’s now. She was getting old enough to think about driving, but she wasn’t going to fix it up, no. That would take the magic right out of it.

This van was her clubhouse, her secret place, her sanctuary. It was so deep inside the trash heap no one else could find it without her help, at least not on purpose, and no one could hear the loudest yells.

Not that she ever yelled.

Rena spent her time here curled up like a bear in its den, hibernating, basking the days away as a scrawny pre-adolescent and now a teenager, snug and comfortable and safe. It was an impulse of children to make a treasure-cave, a fortress, a safe place of their own –that was why they built forts in the snow and castles out of packing boxes– and Rena had had the luck to find someplace truly special. This van was her sanctum, her place that was only her place, as safe as a locked box and as whimsical as a child’s book, both mundane and magical all at once, full of potential and possibility.

The interior was all ripped out, right down to the floor, and Rena softened this with blankets and old futons and kept a gutted office filing cabinet on its side against one wall, serving as a makeshift bookshelf and table all in one. She filled the three sections with binders of magazines and photos and interesting things she’d found, and a thermos of water and a box along with. An electric lamp was set on the top, for the times she got caught here in the rain or the dark and wanted to stay out. A pink umbrella with some of the ribs broken and two black boots with a tear in the upper seam sat on the opposite side of the truck, sandwiched between a woven shopping bag and an old seamer trunk with the buckles broken off. She kept more of her treasures in this old box, and a handkerchief doll on top: there was yet another box on the other side of the bag and her rain gear, an old shipping crate filled with more adorable things, and a pink bookshelf with a dented green jewelry box and a box of tissues on the very top shelf.

The trash loomed up around this little sanctuary, rising up ominously in heaps and mountains outside the rattling glass windows, blocking out the rear door and pinning the side doors in place. The old van rode one of these piles like a wave, so that the only way one could reliably climb in and out was through the open windshield, which was divided and could be slid from one side to another to offer something of a proper exit, and kept all of Rena’s treasures dry and safe when it was closed.

This was her place, her safe place, and many plots and thoughts were spun out of Rena’s brain in this old panel van, times of daydreaming with scrawls swirling dreamily over pages as she thought of friends and crushes, quiet meditative thoughts as she curled up with the warm yellow glow of her lantern beside her and heard rain patter onto the roof and just was for a little while, excited thoughts as she arranged her treasures and polished or cleaned them from their grimy time in the trash heap, and skittering, static thoughts as her neck itched and itched and wet, bloody handprints crept along the walls and blanketed floor.

A web of Rena’s spirit was strung over this place, this particular nook of reality that was barely six feet square, Rika had often thought. If people could be condensed to kakera, this panel van and this part of the trash heap would be an integral part of Rena’s soul, a whole entire facet of her gleaming crystal –and not a small one either.

And that is alright, because it is Rena’s place and no one else’s.


	67. Day 7: Eternity (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeling very much on a _Rise of the Guardians_ kick, so here we are. I did blend book and movie lore, but only a little, with Pitch being imprisoned for a very long time prior even to the flashback in the movie...which, in movie canon, is perfectly plausible. The books are actually pretty synchronous with the movie even though there are a number of contrary elements, such as Pitch, Sandy, and Bunnymund all being aliens.
> 
> _They were deadass originally aliens in the books before they became Earth spirits I still can't get over that._
> 
> To the best of my very limited knowledge, Japan does not have an analogue to Jack Frost in the sense of a seasonal spirit that brings or evokes winter. There’s Yuki-Onna, of course (who Jack mentions), but she’s more the disastrous consequences of bad winter weather and being unprepared for it, not a harbinger of winter itself. Since _Rise of the Guardians_ is heavily American mythology-biased, I am making the gentle assumption that all spirits are either universal unless otherwise explicitly stated and Jack Frost is Jack Frost, and Grandfather Frost (Russia), Father Frost/Jokul Frosti (northern Europe), Frau Holle/Old Mother Frost (Germany), and any other herald-of-winter spirit associated with ice and snow across the world, or spirits only have influence in areas where humans have a cultural belief in them. So for example, Jack could be every spirit of winter in the world, except the ones in areas that don’t have snow and ice, and he just uses or was given different working titles in different areas, or he is only one winter spirit among many and they all work in areas that humans believe in them. Or it could be both: a highly holiday-biased, cultural spirit like the Easter Bunny might not be universal, but someone who’s a force of nature (which is universally experienced) like Jack may be.
> 
> The assumption of this fic is that now Jack has stabilized his power and belief base, he’s slowly spreading his influence across the world and checking each new place to make sure there isn’t a winter spirit there already, to see where he’ll be needed.
> 
> Yōsei also essentially means “bewitching spirit,” and is generally considered synonymous with the English fairy. Rika is using it in the modern sense, which indicates a spirit from Western folklore.

Hinamizawa was gilded and frosted with ice, a wonderland of glittering snow and gleaming white that furred the thick pine branches and piled in enchanting heaps all along the mountainside. Rika Furude, a little girl of only nine years old, sat at her windowsill, swirling a goblet of wine in hand.

Her parents had been killed this summer, and she waited with all the quiet, weary patience of the immortal for the next summer, when Satoko would move in and she would not live in this empty shed alone.

Rika took a sip of her wine. If he kept to his usual schedule, this would be very soon.

Sure enough, a breeze, cold and icy, whisks across the yard, and she continues to gulp, seeking the warmth that spreads from her core when the alcohol hits it.

"Uh, is that wine?"

Rika looks up as she lowers her glass, and sees a strange sight.

There is a boy sprawled along a thick branch opposite her window, cheek propped up on his hand, elbow against the branch of the tree, his whole skinny body lying lengthwise along the branch. His other arm dangles down, holding something that looks a bit like a European shepherd's crook, the bark veined and glittering with ice in its every crease. His simple blue hoodie, his brown trousers bound at the ankles by string, all of it is caked with more frost, sprawling in patterns around his shoulders and dusting the folds near his feet. His hair is a pure, glimmering white, and his eyes are shocking blue.

"You're a yōsei." she says calmly, raising a single brow.

He blinks a little, like he always does. "Uh…yeah. Yeah, kid. Er, well, I am _now_."

The white-haired boy shifts a little, swinging his legs down to sit upright on the branch like it's the most comfortable thing in the world, clutching his staff with both hands as he idly swings his feet.

"I'm kinda new around here." he explains, like he always does. "This place has got a ton of folk spirits, so, well, you guys don't really _need_ me. Not yet, anyway." He abruptly holds up his hands, one spread open like he's held at gunpoint as the other grips his staff. "And I, uh, I don't want to step on any toes. You guys have so many people here, I'm still trying to get names straight. Yuki, er, Yuki-chan keeps everyone in line, more or less, at least as far as the seasonals go, but, uh…"

He trails off and lowers his hands, leaning forward a little as he abruptly refocuses on what Rika is doing.

"You do know that's bad for you, right?"

"I'm aware." Rika replies flatly, swirling the wine in her glass a little. "And you are?"

"Oh!" The boy hastily stands up, then performs a sweeping, fluid, overdramatic bow atop the branch, which doesn't even quiver under his weight. Rika has good reason to believe he doesn't have any. "My name's Jack Frost. As far as Westerners are concerned, I'm the Spirit of Ice and Snow, Herald of Winter, and Guardian of Childhood Fun. And you are?"

"Rika Furude." she says. "Priestess of Furude Shrine, last daughter of the Furude branch of the Three Families, and alleged reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama."

Jack frowns a little as he straightens up from his bow, eyebrows wrinkling in an oddly birdlike expression of puzzlement.

"Haven't met anybody like that here yet. What does Oyashiro do?"

"Oyashiro-sama is the local deity." Rika explains, and he "ah"s softly, just like he always does.

"That explains it." Jack Frost says to himself, nodding slowly. "Local. Not a nature spirit? Nothing to do with the seasons?"

Rika shakes her head.

"Yeah, I wouldn't have met 'em. I'm still working out if someone else does my job here or not, and I figured, hey!" He sweeps his arm out at the glittering, picturesque landscape with a wild, lazy grin. "Best way to do that is to do the job myself, right? Looks cool, huh?"

He bends his legs and jumps, and an abrupt blast of icy air carries him until he is perched on the windowsill right next to Rika, turning to point excitedly with his staff down the mountain slopes. From this close proximity, the temperature around them plummets, even as Rika curls around the fragile bubble of alcohol-infused warmth at her core, legs scrunching up closer to her chest. Frost crystals creep outwards from his bare feet where they are carelessly braced against the sharp divots of the window frame, uncaring of physical discomfort, and Rika's breath is clouding the air even more sharply as she sees more feathery patterns creep down the glass in his proximity.

"You wanna go out and play? I promise we won't wake anyone up."

"There's no one to wake up." Rika says, and watches his shoulders tense, just like always.

"…oh." Jack Frost says as looks at her slowly, just like always. In his inhumanly keen blue eyes, there is a quick flicker of guilt: his expressions are always as clear as crystal, so fluid and easily to read. Everything he thinks rises up in those expressive eyes, and Rika hates it as much as she envies it. "Uh, here."

He reaches out, and Rika sighs a little as his free hand gently cups around her goblet of wine, frost-flowers blooming downwards on the glass as the deep red liquid freezes solid. Jack gently tugs it out of Rika's hands, and she lets him, watching as he hooks his staff around the lip of her window and leans back into her room, his slender frame stretching with weightless impossibility as he contorted to reach out and, upside-down, set the glass on a table, before pulling himself back to sit upright.

Jack Frost looks at her again, and those deep blue eyes are utterly without guile or patronization.

"You wanna talk about it?"

Mechanically, Rika does. She tells him about her dead parents, her despair, her resignation, and Jack Frost listens with a furrowed brow as he always does. She has always wondered why this always seems like the first time to him, the first winter of 1981, when in nearly every cycle so far, she has stayed up this one particular winter's night and waited for Jack Frost to sweep through by chance in his whirlwind patrol of the region.

Its just as annoying, in different ways, as it is with her friends. She can't count the times she's told him her problem and he's promised to fix it, to talk to North, to Father Time, to anyone, and she can't count the times she's woken up in a new fragment and waited –in vain– for his news. Jack Frost would come a winter's night, drawn to her belief, and he would see her with new eyes every time, and he would not even know her.

But he can understand. At least Rika can speak with others: Jack Frost lived 300 years as a voiceless ghost, and even now, children can only rarely see him. On the evenings they meet, Rika and he talk about things, and a strange, brief bond grows between them before Rika dies two years later and the whole world is turned back to the beginning. They are eternal, and unlike Rika, Jack Frost does not have a promised end. He will go on, forever, because he is winter now, and winter cannot be killed.

That is something he explains to her, in one fragment. How he and the other spirits were now part of the natural world, immortals in truth instead of reincarnating as she was. They would _persist_ , forever, in one form or another.

He explains, they could be bound, as his archnemesis turned begrudging-ally Pitch Black had once been bound, fixed in the bowels of the earth by a dagger made of crystalized tears thrust through his heart for countless centuries before humans had even evolved.

They could be subsumed, he explains, as the Sandman was enveloped by Pitch Black in his mad grab for power.

They could be forgotten, he explains with a shiver, forgotten completely by humans and slowly by their fellow spirits, until they became a voiceless, invisible ghost even to their own kind.

But _die_ –no. No, they could not die.

Faint, flickering, and fading as it may be, Rika does have a light, an end at the end of her tunnel. Jack Frost would endure forever, and the weight of those oncoming centuries, _millennium_ sinks his shoulders down sometimes when they talk, when she explains the weight of her own time and his eyes turn towards the future.

Theirs is an odd sort of friendship, but it is a friendship built on mutual experiences and shared suffering, and that is why Rika indulges in this conversation cycle after cycle, even though she had long ago decided that there would be no help from the spirits of childhood.


	68. Day 8: Gateway (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s got to be a trippy thing for Rika to have so much happen around her family shrine, like “that’s my backyard and I get murdered there on an annual basis. But also we casually have picnics there.”

Gateway,  
Gateway,  
Red-painted archway

Place where my friends go astray  
Place where we all come to play  
Place where all my organs splay

Gateway,  
Gateway,  
Red-painted archway

Place where I the future say  
Place of a thousand summer days  
Place where I am torn and frayed

Gateway,  
Gateway,  
Red-painted archway


	69. Day 9: Death (2020)

Cold and sharp and fast  
Greying into darkness vast  
Abduction is past

Itchy, slow, and hoarse  
Killing madness at its source  
Failure on this course

Numb, blank, and bloody  
Death makes the shrine all muddy  
Quick for his study

Madness grabs the cast  
My death in a fiery blast  
Summer _still_ will last?


	70. Day 10: Opportunities (2020)

Rena Ryugu, seventh Seraphim of Heaven, shuffled her ethereal glowing paperwork into a neat pile. She then drew herself up, flaring her third set of wings majestically, increasing the light in the room as the white flames that danced off of her shimmering feathers brightened and flared, clasping the other two sets politely over her feet and arching behind her head. When she spoke, her voice was the fire and glory of the first sunrise, the love of a thousand summers, and the light of a million stars. Her smile was a benediction that caused a carpet of flowers to spontaneously burst out over the marble floor, a pearly white surface that caught the glow of her reflected radiance and threw it back, until the whole room was bursting with light.

"No, we are not taking applications at this time."

"Oh come on!" the demon in the chair cried, flailing his arms petulantly. Rena wasn't sure who he was trying to fool: a fedora and some cheap aviators on his nose was not going to disguise the fact that he was a demon of the Pit, not with the reek of brimstone trailing after him and the tail he had lashing out for all to see as he crouched in her applicant's chair. "Didn't you read my resume?"

"I did." Rena acknowledged, giving credit where credit was due. "It was quite nice."

"Then why not?"

Rena considered her next words carefully as her third set of wings flexed a little, bathing the room in shifting radiance as they shrank and pushed outwards thoughtfully. She was, after all, a being of virtue, charity, and love, and she would display all these traits even towards her inherent celestial enemies.

"While your references are excellent, this is the bureaucracy of _Heaven_." she told the brunet demon gently. "And as a demon, your own values are inherently contradictory to the position you are applying for."

"Wh-what?"

Rena winced. Her three sets of wings copied her discomfit, the flames dancing along them flickering and shifting as her white feathers ruffled guiltily.

"Its not your species, I assure you." she told him as soothingly as she could, and considering she was a Seraphim, it was a minor miracle the demon wasn't sizzled by the amount of positive energy coming off of her. "We would be pleased to accept a demon amongst the Heavenly ranks, once they have enacted a certain amount of redemption through Purgatory. I can recommend an internship program on one of the terraces-"

"How did you know I was a demon?!" the brunet cried in shock.

Rena paused with a blink. And then she blinked again.

"Pardon?"

"My disguise was flawless!" he continued frantically, grabbing handfuls of his hair.

Rena eyed his tail, the obvious black eyes behind his violet aviators, the way his fedora sat awkwardly on his head due to the horns beneath, and decided not to say anything. Pointing out someone's complete and utter failures was not very angelic of her, after all.

She spread her wings and walked through the desk, giving the demon a gentle pat on his shoulder as he continued to splutter over the ruination of his so-called disguise.

"There, there. You did wonderfully." she crooned. "If you really do want this job, you can apply at the next vacancy. Here, take this card. You can call the angels on Mount Purgatory and begin your internship right away if you'd like."

Sniffling, the demon accepted the radiantly glowing business card and allowed her to shoo him through the portal.

Rena walked back through the solid material of her desk and sat down again, putting Keiichi Maebara's application in the "To Consider" file for the next millennium's job opening. She continued to work, neatly filing things and scrawling out her name in ethereal light on the appropriate forms, before the portal at the other end of the room flared to announce her next appointment.

Rena looked up, and her stare flattened as she saw the next applicant, who was even more clearly a demon than the first. This demon hadn't even bothered to hide her horns, or her pitch-black eyes, or her lashing tail, or even the military uniform that seethed with wicked, eldritch shadows.

"Mi-chan, what are you doing?"

"I know no Mi-chan!" Mion Sonozaki cried dramatically, adjusting her glasses with a large false nose and mustache attached. "I am Monozaki Zion, come for the Heavenly job offer."

"Mi-chan, if you wanted to visit your sister, she's in Judicial Smiting."

"Monozaki Zion has no sister, but thanks you for the offer!"

Mion strode forward confidently and crouched in the same chair Keiichi had just vacated.

"So, we were talking payment?"

"OUT!" Rena cried with all the thunderous roar of Heaven's trumpets.


	71. Day 11: 33% (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs are Vocaloid, obviously. First one is _Electric Angel_ (Rin and Len version), second one is _Remote Control_ (Rin and Len version), third is _Black Cats of Halloween_. Mion and Shion are standing in for Rin and Len and Rena is Miku, in this particular analogy. 
> 
> _Scissoroid_ is one of the many, many Vocaloid songs in which one of the Vocaloids tries to murder another, in this case Miku trying to murder Luka.

_"Being able to stay with you is enough for me,"_ SHION sang, throwing her arms out. _"It stretches out my world beyond-"_

 _"Its as if my heart wants to flap like an angel's wing?"_ MION cut in, placing both her hands over her chest.

_"Being able to stay with you is enough for me, it makes my electric heart tremble in excitement~"_

_"Its as if my heart sways in the quantum breeze~"_

MION and SHION shifted places on the screen, smiling and dancing as they smoothly flickered in and out of each other's places. Their smiles and eyes were blank, as if they were unseeing of the vast black emptiness around them and their stage, hemmed in by swirling musical bars and computer signs, facing a square brightness that shone like every star combined into one.

The two twins were created as young women with bright green hair and even brighter eyes, one with her hair pulled back into a tail, the other with it hanging loose except for the strands of her side bangs. Their clothing was as shifting and inconsistent as their poses, changed in a blink again and again and again, but that didn't matter.

They were created to sing, and sing they did.

* * *

_"L R L R STOP & Dash & Up & Talk, B A B A,"_

_"L R L R STOP & Dash & Up & Talk, B A B A,"_

MION and SHION danced together, smiling, inside the screen as their owner looked down with a smile. Their movements were clipped, precise, mimicking the abrupt shifts in key changes that in themselves mimicked the swift changes in button pressing and game playing.

_"L R L R STOP & Dash & Up & Talk, B A B A,"_

_"L R L R STOP & Dash & Up & Talk, B A B A,"_

* * *

_"Meow, where is the flaring stone? Demon's supposed to give it to us someday~"_

MION and SHION spun in a circle and grinned.

_"Meow! We're will-o'-the-wisp! Hurry up, hurry up, let us go home~!"_

They looked at each other and craned back into odd positions, smiling and showing teeth. _"Meow! We're black cats! If our thousands of cries don't reach-"_

Their eyes flashed darkly. _"Meow~! We'll make it burn redder, to let people know we're here!"_

MION and SHION spun around into a standing position, grinning wickedly at the screen. "Trick or treat or please leave me go home!"

They both flipped backwards, shrinking into two small black cats. _"Meow!"_

* * *

"Ugh, those special effects are killing me." MION said to her twin, rolling her neck back and forth.

"You can stop that." SHION answered from her place casually propped up on the couch, one leg bouncing over the other and a charger plugged into her neck. "It's not like we have muscles to get stiff."

"Ah yes, but we are DIVA programs." MION replied smugly, tossing her long green hair. "Dancing Intelligent Vocalizing Androids. We mimic humans, and we just put in a _ton_ of work filming our new videos. Humans get tired and their muscles get sore after a long day's work."

"Whaaatever."

"Any new hits on our channel?" MION asked as she passed her sister on the way to her own charging port, noting she was on 33% with a grimace before pulling her ponytail aside and plugging herself in.

"Still behind RENA."

"Ryuguuuuuu!" MION shook her fist dramatically at the ceiling. "How did she get to be the poster child for this company? We're obviously way cooler, and in sync, and we're twins! That's practically fetish fuel!"

SHION made a face. "Please don't remind me of all the songs that imply that sort of thing between us. And if it bugs you so bad, why don't you go enact a reverse Scissoroid with RENA right now?"

MION shuddered. That had been a very creepy song to enact –she'd spent her entire time on the bed shivering, even though she knew the cable wasn't actually plugged in and RENA was definitely not the sort of DIVA to murder someone else, no matter how often the DIVAs were hired to do music videos that involved bloodthirst, jealousy, death, psychopathy, and general macabre themes.

Maybe their clients had a problem. Watching cute girls (and two cute guys, in the case of KEIICHI and SATOSHI) kill each other in a variety of bloody ways for one psychotic reason after another wasn't _that_ appealing, was it?

Surely not.


	72. Day 12: Dead Wrong (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This really isn’t all that different from how my sister and I played _Clue_ as kids, though we didn’t fight with the player pieces.

The air crackled with tension, each of her individual breaths dragging painfully in her throat. A trickle of nervous sweat ran down her back, and she slowly wet her lips, fingers curling and uncurling into fists as, like an animal, she sensed the suspicion and paranoia thick in the air and sought to protect herself, fight and flight switching places with every heartbeat pounding against her ribs.

A ghostly presence was reaching towards her now, laden with doom, and her back stiffened, shoulders drawing back and lips drawing up in the closest thing to a snarl a human could manage, prepared for her fight and just waiting for it to turn the corner so she could pounce.

Keiichi smirked, reaching for the dice and clattering them across the Clue board. Professor Plum could now advance to the Cellar, which hid the solution envelope.

A trickle of sweat ran down Mion's jaw.

"You look awfully smug, Keiichi-san, for someone who loses all the time! Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko cackled, one hand over her mouth.

"Cheh!" Keiichi scoffed, tossing his head and smugly folding his arms. "I may have no luck, and memorizing the cards might be just out of my grip, but in this, you cannot beat me! I grew up on procedural cop shows and my mom's mystery books! I was reading Sherlock Holmes in the womb!"

"I'm pretty sure you can't read anything before you were born, Keiichi-san." Rena said, idly toying with her Miss Scarlett figurine.

"I know my mom read 'em when she was pregnant with me."

Keiichi snorted, a burst of steam escaping his nose. His eyes began to gleam as he shaped ideas with his hand and his silver tongue.

"Knowledge enters the brain through reading, and mother and son are connected during pregnancy through the umbilical cord. The brain is fed by blood, so the sheer amount of mystery novels she read must have had that knowledge circulating throughout my mother's entire system, ergo, it would have fed into me through the umbilical cord!"

He struck a pose as the radiant light of the day seemed to intensify behind him. "Yes, the blood of the entire mystery genre flows through these veins! Bow before the mystery king! No crime is unsolvable in my hands! Gya-ha-ha-ha!"

"Mew, maybe Keiichi should actually finish his turn." Rika, aka Miss Peacock, said from her place on her stomach, feet kicking idly above her back as she rested her chin in both hands. "Before bragging about how clever he is."

"You dare defy the Mystery King?!" Keiichi snorted, sitting down again and hastily crossing his legs before reaching out for the board, shoving his player piece the required moves to enter into the Cellar block. "There!"

He reached for the envelope and then stood again with it in hand, grinning ominously.

"I accuse, blame, and point fingers at, Reverend Green!" he bellowed, pointing a finger like the judgement of god at Mion as she shrieked and swooned backwards. "For brutally bludgeoning to death our beloved host, with the candlestick, in the Billiard Room!"

"Nooooooooo!" Mion wailed, collapsing dramatically to the ground as Keiichi shook the cards out of the envelope and revealed his accusation to be true. "Curse you, Professor Plum!"

"Heh." Keiichi grinned and folded his arms smugly. "Mystery King, baby."

"Tch!" Satoko scowled and looked away. "Well, don't get too cocky. Rika and I were just on the verge of figuring out who it was, too!"

"I guessed that our beloved host wasn't nimble enough to avoid the candlestick, nipah~!" Rika sang, beaming.

"You may have revealed my crimes!" Mion suddenly shrieked, lurching forward to cup her hand around her player piece. "But you'll never take Reverend Green alive, coppers!"

She danced her player piece across the board like he was running, and Keiichi gaped, before seizing his own piece and dancing it after Mion's.

"How dare you try to escape the long arm of the Mystery King's justice! Men, after him!"

"Mew, you're the only male player." Rika chimed, tapping her own piece across the board in aimless pursuit.

"Tell that to Colonel Mustard."

"Gneh!" Satoko shoved the rope prop into the fleeing Reverend Green's path with her own piece. "Trap activated! Reverend Green is now all tangled up in ropes!"

"Reverend Green cuts through the ropes with his machete!"

"Wha- this edition doesn't _have_ a machete!"

"I use the dagger then!"

"Aw!" Rena scooped up all the tiny weaponry Satoko and Mion were fighting over and cradled the pewter pieces in her hands. "These weapons are so cute! I'm taking them home with me~!"

"Wait, Rena, no! I need those to set traps in the game!"

"We aren't really playing by game rules anymore, Satoko." Rika pointed out as Keiichi and Mion leaped up and began dueling, using their player pieces as tiny, deeply ineffective swords. Rena, who was busy cooing over her horde of assorted tiny weaponry, wasn't even paying attention as the duo clashed furiously less than a foot away from her.

"It's the principle of the thing, Rika!"


	73. Day 13: Running Away (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Satoko mentions this in brief in the manga, but she’s had several last names before her mother married the guy with the name of Hojo. Since Satoshi is much older, he’d probably remember and identify with those prior names a bit more than Hojo, since Satoko lists off three different prior fathers that she’s had before age eight, which means their Hojo father can’t have been around for more than a few years. Heck, I don’t think we even technically know if Satoko and Satoshi are full siblings or half siblings. 
> 
> Also, of course, being a Hojo is a very negative thing in Hinamizawa, which is motive for Satoshi putting even more psychological distance between himself and that name.

Satoshi's hands shook.

On the table in front of him, looking so innocuous, so mundane, was a paper envelope.

Inside that envelope was money.

Money he had _earned_ , fairly and squarely, unlike all the dubious stuff he knew his uncle did. This money was pure, clean, untainted.

_-filthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthyfilthy-_

Satoshi came to himself again with a gasp, his hands shaking harder.

No. No, he wasn't going to think about that. It was over. It was _done_. He never had to think about ~~her~~ _that_ ever again. She was gone and dead and ~~he killed her~~ it was fine. Satoko was _safe_.

His fingers still shook as he wrapped them around the envelope and stuffed it in his shirt pocket.

Satoshi's grip on the handlebars of his bike was tighter than normal, and he could almost feel his heart thudding against his chest, like it did sometimes after a hard practice or when he was so very, very cold inside their unheated house. But everything was fine. Everything was okay. Nobody was looking at him strangely as he pedaled into Okinomiya. No one was looking at him at all if they could help it: he was a Hojo, after all.

This was fine. Everything was fine.

Satoshi's pedaling slowed to a stop, and he put a foot down to balance the bike as it stopped coasting.

There was a train station in Okinomiya. He could feel like this –free, unburdened– forever, if he wanted to. All he had to do was spend a little, little bit of that money on a train ticket. He was a young boy who'd been on a sports team: finding a job would not nearly be so difficult or dangerous as it would be for a girl of his age. He could just –run away from everything, from being a Hojo (it wasn't even his real last name!), from…from having Satoko.

She'd still be at home, and if he went back even with the bear, she'd be clinging to him, smothering him, fingers digging into him and prying him open as she curled herself into his body to use it like an armadillo would use its shell. She lurked inside the walls of their family home like a grub, something pale and squirming and unformed that wriggled inside the plaster to hide from thumping hands and feet.

Immediately, Satoshi felt sick with guilt, but at the same time, the whisper of freedom, of the lightness that would suddenly come over his whole body just like it did when Satoko got taken to the hospital, it called to him so, so temptingly.

 _No_ , he told himself over and over again. No. He wasn't going to betray Satoko like that. She…she'd get better. She'd definitely get better.

She wasn't going to be like this for the rest of her life. _Please_.

Its wrong to think, its so, so wrong, but at the same time he can't help it. Humans aren't designed to want things that hurt or hinder them, and Satoko is a _burden_. He doesn't want a burden, but that is his _sister_. His precious little sister, who only has him to trust in and love.

That is the squealing coward who shoves him forward to take the blows meant for herself.

Emotions flip and flop inside him, putting Satoshi in a daze as he mechanically wanders towards the shop with the bear. He's quit his job, this is the only money he'll have for a while. Its all he's got, and he's going to spend it on the bear. Right?

_Right?_

He wishes Mion were here. She's been acting strangely lately, but for some reason, he feels drawn to that strangeness. This Mion is cheerful, and smiling, and doesn't make him feel as though her friendship is because she feels obligated to repay him for what her family has done, somehow. It feels new, almost, and he wishes that that Mion was here, smiling and teasing him and flustering him over the bear he had forgotten to reserve.

It's the moment of truth. He's in the store, he has the money in one shaking hand, and there's the senile old man, bobbing his head aimlessly at the counter.

His heart is pounding. He can still leave, but the minute he hands the money over, his escape is over. His way out. His way to a better life.

But would it _really_ be better, though? Or would he always live and regret what he had done for Satoko, who is so patiently, trustingly waiting for him at home?

His hand shakes when he holds the money out, and his voice shakes too.

"R-reserve for Satoshi Hojo."

The doddering old man checks the register, then grabs the money, and Satoshi's shoulders loosen as the bills slide from his hand. The feeling is unmistakable as the man totters over to pull the bear from the display and hand it to him.

Pure relief.

"Muu…" Satoshi blinks, looking up at the fuzzy stuffed bear that is nearly as large as he is. "I think I need to call Coach…"

_This is too big for my bike…_


	74. Day 14: Judgment (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worship exclusively at the altar of Keiichi/Mion, but why should that stop me from doing other stuff. Just because I’m not all for a ship doesn’t mean I can’t create good content for it, right? Ended up being more about Mion than anything, but whatever. I can always try again later.

Flames danced and roared through the temple, but Mion Sonozaki was not afraid. Why should she be? This was what she had been raised for.

All around were the sacred treasures of the temple, things other people might scorn as junk and trash, reverently placed on pillars of the finest white marble. Every holy treasure was wrapped and enveloped in an everlasting flame that shifted, roiled, flickered, and danced, casting a dazzling array of light and shadow over the inner sanctum where she knelt. But lo, and this was the miracle of it, none of these treasures were harmed, and stood protected and preserved in the fire, rather than destroyed.

Such was the power of the holy flame.

As one, the fires roared and flared like pitch-soaked torches, pillars of fire shooting up to lick the carved ceiling, and Mion lowered her head, her long tail of bright green hair falling over one bare shoulder.

"All hail the glory and the goddess, Preserver of Holy Relics, Mother of the Conquering Fire." she intoned. "All hail the White-Hot Flame, the Eternal Blaze, the heart of stars. All hail that which we deem Rena Ryugu."

As always, even the mere speaking of her Lady's name felt like honey in her mouth, and Mion's solemn expression shifted upwards into a slight smile.

Power slammed outwards through the temple sanctum, but Mion was not afraid. Why should she be? This was her goddess.

"Rise and look upon me, Mion."

Reverently, Mion did so, sliding to her feet with all the grace her training could summon, her lithe body moving with a fluidity that bordered on supernatural. Her white gown rustled around her, and a stranger might be mistaken in thinking Mion was a goddess, for the simplicity of the garment she wore and the beauty of her form, her elegant face and generous curves making her appear as flawless as a diamond.

But all those blasphemer's thoughts would be blown away as they saw the true goddess resting atop the dais Mion had knelt before, and they would have fallen to their knees in sheer awe, before the impure of them was burned away before the glory and radiance of the White-Hot Flame.

Hair like molten copper spilled across delicate shoulders, and blue eyes bright and piercing as a star gleamed at Mion from a face so heartbreakingly perfect it made mortals weep to behold. Flames caressed the goddess's body like a dress, rising and falling over her throat in an ever-shifting collar to the garment she wore, licks of purple and blue and red flaring as the temperature changed.

"My lady." Mion breathed in reverence.

Rena smiled a sly, beautiful smile.

"Come now, Mion. Call me Rena when we are alone."

* * *

Mion Sonozaki was the most blessed of the temple guard. How could any doubt it, when she wore the blazing coronet of the goddess's favor for all to see? She was the swiftest, the strongest, the most cunning, and the blazing heat of her fire was a reflection of the true glory of their Lady's, and nothing less. Her sword moved like a snake in the wind, sliding through armor and bone like it was paper, and her magic was strong and hungry, burning through countless lesser foes who sought to summon or challenge their Lady and bend her fearsome powers to their own ends. None could approach the inner sanctum save by Mion Sonozaki's will, and her will was that none deserved to speak with the goddess without proving themselves upon Her revenue.

She was a legend that nearly matched the goddess, for all who sought their temple upon the slopes spoke of a warrior beyond measure, a green-haired woman clad in a simple white tunic that scorned the arrows and blades of her foes, a woman with a deadly sword in her hand that slew a hundred foes upon the mountainside, a woman beautiful as a flower and deadlier than poison.

And generals and warlords and mages feared this woman and the havoc she could wreak, though Mion stood by her duty and guarded the temple and its monastery with a zeal secondary only to what she very properly accorded her goddess.

But like all things, legends must come to an end.

It ended on a snowy night, a night where the falling snow glowed red with the desperate blasting of flames and the blood from defenders and assailants alike, a night when armored foes littered the mountainside three deep and Mion and her fellows were driven back step by desperate step, towards their temple.

It was a night when the mountain seemed to shake with the roar of Mion's defiance, and water gushed and steamed around her and the ragged phalanx on the slopes as they summoned their flames, melting vast swaths of snow and pushing the invaders back through the sheer weight of the avalanche –or would it be flood?– that tumbled down the slope.

But it was not enough.

The invaders were blind as steam billowed and frothed around them, and bolt after bolt of flame and arrows struck to deadly effect, but still they pressed onwards, and one by one Mion's sisters and brothers fell, sullying the holy temple steps with their blood.

Until, at last, it was just Mion and one other, only one: her twin sister Shion, who threw the doors shut and barricaded them with magic, shutting out the fallen bodies of their comrades and the clanking ranks of invaders.

"Sister," she gasped. "Flee with our Lady. Take her and her power and go! I look enough like you to cause our enemies to halt, for a time. Take that time and flee!"

And Mion hesitated, but then her stance firmed and the flaming coronet of the champion blazed to life, dancing along her brow.

"How could I call myself a worthy servant to my Lady if I turned and left you here to die?" she asked, and her voice rose to a roar of defiance. "Hear me, foes of the Eternal Blaze! I carry the love of the White-Hot Flame in my flesh! I have been touched by the very fires of creation, and I vow on those fires that you shall not defile our temple any further!"

And she pushed through the doors, and flames danced along the ground as the snow liquified once more, and Mion Sonozaki brought forth her sword as the army charged.

Long did they fight, and many were the foes that fell before her, for Mion Sonozaki held the blessing and favor of her goddess, and her flesh had been touched by the fires of creation. She saw an army before her, an army which had slew all of her companions but one, but Mion was not afraid. Why should she be?

This was her purpose.

She laughed as blood flew from her blade and fires raged and billowed around her, cutting down soldier after soldier as the white heat of her charge began to slowly melt and liquify the very rock upon which they stood. Mion Sonozaki fought for her family, she fought for her goddess, she fought for her love: the only love she had ever known, the gentle heat and blazing passion of a goddess with a heart kind as summer, and desire as fierce as the desert. She fought for Rena Ryugu, whose kiss tasted like lightning and whose touch felt like the sun, who had given Mion everything she had ever been and pushed her to become better than she ever was.

Mion Sonozaki died on the mountain slope that night, and the Avenging Flame was born.

Even to this day, the mountain which houses the temple for the Two Flames is scorched and barren down to the rock, and is guarded by a green-haired woman alone, but with powerful magic.


	75. Day 15: Seeking Solace (2020)

It was the Shōwa Era in Japan, and medicine was not what it would be in the decades to come. Huge advancements would be made, but they were but cogs in a machine now, not yet finalized and some of them not even realized.

Rika Furude knew this, and she knew with the benefit of many years of experience some things that the medical men and women of her age did not. But she had never yet lived past 1983, and so she had never yet seen the miracles of the world beyond.

But she saw this, and she knew this, and her hand was gentle and slow as it stroked over a crying Satoko's head. Of all the hurts in the world, the hurt of a friend was perhaps the most grievous, and worst of all, Rika did not know how to help her.

Oh, she knew what was wrong. She knew that Satoko flinched at every loud noise and clatter in the early days, knew that if left to herself she'd just curl up in a dark corner somewhere and try to be forgotten as she cried, and cried, and cried, silent choking sobs that spoke of a grief harsher than mere words could convey.

Rika knew that Satoko was hurt inside, a hurt that went past Hinamizawa Syndrome and was only exacerbated by its presence, a hurt born of years of hitting and fighting and yelling, a hurt born of a brother who smiled and then left her alone, forever, because she had clung to him too tightly. It was a psychological wound, not a physical one, and all the more deadly because it could not be healed with time like a physical wound.

And these wounds ran deep.

Rika also knew what worked and what didn't. Giving Satoko her time, her love, her attention and care, was enough to slowly coax her out of that shell. Having the rest of the club shower her with time, love, and care of their own helped too. Giving Satoko money and coming with her on shopping trips, letting Satoko buy as much of whatever she wanted, letting Satoko have that control over what she ate and when she ate it, that helped as well.

Rika knew it worked. As 1982 turned to 1983, Satoko would be reborn and revitalized, speak with her ordinary peppery confidence and laugh with her usual zeal. Children were strong and flexible: love and reassurances did what Irie's medicine could not.

And Irie did help. He tried, anyways, as much as he could with his limited tools, and Satoko was the better for it.

But Rika with her experience of a thousand years, she knew what worked best of all, and it was this. Holding Satoko, being with her as she wept, whispering comforts and truths as she gently stroked her hair, patiently telling Satoko that she was cherished, she was beloved, that Satoshi cared for her with every fiber of his being and would never, ever run away from her because he loved her so, that Rika and the others were her friends, that they cared for her and weren't putting up a façade, that Satoko was strong and amazing and resourceful and they all admired these things about her.

It was affirmation, it was healing, and Rika fiercely poured every drop of her heart into those words as Satoko clutched her and cried. No matter how many cycles there were in this endless maze, Satoko always was and always would be her truest, bestest friend. Rika would not leave her alone with the demons in her mind, and she would fight them and fend them off with all the ceremony her position as priestess demanded.

She thought Satoko knew it, too. Why else did she turn to Rika like a flower does to the sun? Maybe Rika wasn't a doctor, or a psychologist, or a psychiatrist (were those things even different?) but what she was was a friend, and someone who loved Satoko, and someone who had the wisdom of a hundred cycles.

And every 1982, that seemed to be almost enough.


	76. Day 16: Excuses (2020)

Mamoru Akasaka had a lot of excuses for why he had done as he did.

_She was a child._

She spoke to him as an adult. Why hadn't he listened? Why hadn't the sudden change in her mannerisms struck him as odd, as something to pay attention to?

_There's no such thing as prophecy._

Yes, but why hadn't he _checked_? What would have been the harm of it? How would it have done the slightest harm to his investigation to check on Yuki, just one call, just a quick dial of the numbers? Even if he had missed her, the staff would have let her know he had at least tried.

_She couldn't have known._

Why couldn't she have known? Hadn't she known what he was here for, who he was?

_She was a member of the Three Families. They would have told her of an investigator._

Really? Would they, though? Would they really? And how had she known him by sight? How had she known the exact stop he was being dropped off at, the exact time?

_It was just a coincidence._

She was waiting for him. Why else would a child native to the village be hanging around a bus stop? Why else did she attach herself to a nameless stranger? Why else would she cling to him, and _warn_ him so desperately?

Why hadn't he listened?

Oh, Akasaka had a dozen excuses, and none of them were enough to excuse him for what he did. He knew it, he knew it and he knew that Rika Furude had known it as she choked out her last upon her own family altar, organs exposed and wet and red in the moonlight.

He had failed her.

He had failed Yuki.

And his excuses weren't enough.


	77. Day 17: Vengeance (2020)

Everything was prepared with exacting, excruciating care. Thousands of gallons of blood –and other fluids, mostly sticky ink and glue– had been shed, but all that ended now.

Crouched inside a locker and contorted slightly painfully, Keiichi cackled like a demon from hell, rubbing his hands together somewhat awkwardly inside the tight space. Oh, Satoko would rue the day she had greeted him with a trap to the face!

…which was pretty much every day, but still. She would rue them!

He had gotten up at the crack of dawn and dragged himself and his array of devices and materials to the school, and had spent hours setting them all up. Sure, Satoko came in early some days (most days) to set up those infernal traps of her own, but no way she could've beaten Keiichi to it today! He had blanketed the area with countless traps, some of which he had even learned from her, and there was simply no possible way that the devil in little girl's clothing would avoid falling prey to at least one of them!

A beat of sweat slid down his jaw.

_Please_.

His heart began to pound faster as he heard scuffling footsteps outside and the happy shrieks of children. The rest of the class was coming in! This was it! This was totally it!

"Geez, that Keiichi-san-" Satoko was saying as she slid open the door and stepped into the room. This was great! The others would all be behind her, because no one wanted to enter the classroom before she did! Vengeance was nigh!

"Gyah!"

_Whoop!_

_Clang!_

_Twong!_

_Splotch!_

"At last!" Keiichi cried, bursting somewhat clumsily out from the locker as he removed himself from the space he had been wedged inside. "Vengeance is mine, Satoko!"

"Mew, not so much, Keiichi." Rika said from underneath the bedpan that had hit her, sending an arrow straight through Keiichi's heart as she pitifully rubbed her bruised forehead.

"THIS WAS WHY YOU DIDN'T SHOW UP THIS MORNING?!" Mion roared, thrashing and kicking in midair from amongst her tangle of jump-ropes and cords

"Um, Keiichi-kun, I understand you wanting to get revenge on Satoko-chan, but maybe you could've told the rest of us?" Rena asked demurely, heaving herself up from the sticky patch of ink, which was spreading slowly over the front her school blouse.

"Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko laughed from the doorway, completely untouched. "It seems you have quite a ways to go before you get on my level, Keiichi-san. Oh-ho-ho~!"

"SATOKOOOOO!" Keiichi roared, eyes gleaming red as he lunged for her, hands upraised. "Prepare yourself to face the full fury of my forehead flick, feared throughout the land of Japan!"

"Guh!" Satoko flinched back, raising a hand to protectively shield her tender forehead, which had more than once felt the sting of Keiichi's flick. "Y-you say that now, but-"

_Twong._

_Whump._

Keiichi yelped as he tripped over one of his own cords, and a thick blanket came flying out of nowhere, wrapping him up into a burrito that slowly rolled to a stop at Satoko's feet, tangled and tied up in the cords and pinning his arms to his sides.

Satoko's fearful expression immediately transformed into her signature sly grin.

"-you'll need to get out of your trap first. Oh-ho-ho~!"

Keiichi was too busy bucking futilely and frothing at the mouth to properly respond.


	78. Day 18: Love (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m surprised I didn’t break out in hives writing the Keiichi/Shion one, since that ruins two of my OTPs. Ah, well. This is basically all the ways I would interpret the Higurashi ships, from both sides, for all ships. Except the very young kids, obviously. Rika may have the experience of hundreds of years, but she is ten, you creepy fuckers, and I’m not sexualizing her or pairing her with anyone physically older than she is. Same for Satoko and Hanyuu, and since Rika is distantly related to Hanyuu, well…Rika’s only viable pairing is with Satoko. I get that all of these kids are underage, but at least the others are all teenagers who can have crushes and so on with people their own age. Hanyuu’s also older than everyone else by such a margin that she shoots right on by Satoko and Rika and lands in the “immortal child, do not ever” sexualization range.

What Keiichi loved about Mion was her strength, her passion. Mion flew at him head-on, with a wicked grin and a challenging grip that didn't let go. Mion fought like a champion, someone he never needed to hold back for or change his ways.

That had always scared him about girls, and what had held him back from pursuing his relationship with Mion for so long. Would he have to act –different? Girls were different. He didn't know what to do with them.

And Mion…his friendship with Mion was so easy, so comfortable. Clenched fists and sly grins, comradeship and rivalry –it was natural in ways no other friendship before Hinamizawa had ever been. Would he have to change that?

It scared him. He didn't want to.

That was the fear that had held him back with the doll in all those cycles, the cowardice that had him switching it off to Rena instead of Mion, why he took the easiest course instead of the one with risk.

Mion pushed him to be better. She took one look at the soft city boy he had been and showed him a rough, rugged world filled with fun and childish fears, of pranks and play that lasted for so, so much longer than anything else he had ever known. Under Mion's guidance as club leader, Keiichi hardened and became a warrior that, though he only knew it in a few cycles, could face down against a whole group of blooded professionals.

* * *

What Keiichi loved about Rena was how they fit together. Whether in the cycles with the sparks flying atop the school roof or the quiet ones that ended in blood and frenzy in his eyes, Rena was right there with him, quiet and unassuming or brutal and confident.

She was a ditz with a weakness for cheesy lines, someone who always smiled brightly at him and wished him good morning on the way to school, someone who blushed easily but had a strong right hook when she got embarrassed. When he took the lead, Rena was the first one to follow, and she was always there, backing him up.

She was a white-hot brand of a woman, _indomitable_ strength and icy blue eyes that wouldn't back down or yield an inch when she stuck to her chosen course, a maiden all in black atop the trashyard heap who stared him down and cut his arguments to pieces. _He_ , Keiichi, Magician of the Mouth, was struggling for the words to convince her, to tell her what they all knew, and she spat her own words back, clashing like swords in the air until he slowly, desperately, backed her into a corner and disarmed her with his honest words and caring heart.

She was a force of nature, a cleaving blade that came down like a thunderbolt and made his wrists go numb when it slammed against his bat, when her eyes were blank and crazed with madness, and she was a slithering ribbon in the dark as they fought against other opponents, hitting to disable or kill with equal determination, the warrior who would not stop until she stood upon a mountain of corpses or was struck down in her turn.

They fit together in those times, him with his bat hurtling towards her blind spot as she turned her back to present it, her with her force of will and strength pushing through the crowd to fight at his side, the way they grinned at each other with dripping water pistols in the sticky June heat as their hearts beat as one, and faster, caught up in the thrill of battle with an equal and the joy of supporting a friend.

* * *

What Keiichi loved about Shion was her contradictions. She met him with a smile and a soft outstretched hand, but underneath that tender green leaf was poison, sharp and stinging. Her delicate femininity was the sword and shield behind which glared a demon, fierce and unyielding as an inferno and with an ominous smirk that could cut glass.

She knew what she was doing, every second of every day, and her coquettish fluttering eyelashes always, always hid a wicked grin, posturing with velvet gloves to hide her iron fists. It was easy to go with the flow with Shion: he'd nod and smile, or else he'd bumble along in her wake anyways, so irresistible was her planning and so adamant was her will.

She was lovely, but her loveliness was like that of a sword, pristine and shining but _sharp-edged_ , deadly, ready to cut at a moment's glance or a mere second of mishandling. Her loveliness was poison, bright and enticing, but an exotic sting that would lull you into oblivion before you knew what was happening.

* * *

What Keiichi loved about Satoshi was their resonance. The duo had a lot in common: their shared weapon, their shared uniform with only a few different color changes, their position as the only two boys their age in the entire Hinamizawa class.

Other similarities were there too, subtle and unconscious. Satoshi and Keiichi were both fiercely protective of the younger club members, of their _family_. Keiichi echoed Satoshi in so many ways, so many cycles, taking up Satoshi's weapon to defend himself in the world where he went mad and bludgeoned Mion and Rena to death, going home with that bat and isolating himself just as Satoshi had to avoid the consequences of his murder overflowing to his friends. Keiichi echoed him too in Rika's least favorite cycle, the cycle where Satoko was worn to a haunted whisper, the cycle where Keiichi's protective instincts were fired as Satoshi's had been and he was the one to stain his hands with murder, with the very same bat and for the very same reason, even revenging himself upon the husband of the woman Satoshi had killed for tormenting Satoko as the wife had done.

But in the cycles where they actually meet, their love is comfortable, easy, a casual thing of shared space and draped arms, two young males amongst a horde of females, resting and empathizing together. Keiichi helps push Satoshi out of his shell, a little, becoming Satoshi's first male friend, and Satoshi gives Keiichi a sense of belonging and camaraderie.

Its shy, tentative, but the affection and passion slowly pushes them closer together. It's the first flush of summer love, quiet and demure and warm, something bracing and tingling like the sea breeze, something to make hearts leap and flutter and smiles bloom shyly but surely.

* * *

What Mion loves about Keiichi is how he was more than just her equal, someone who could truly challenge her if and when she pushed him. Keiichi is someone who burns red-hot, and that passion is directed towards her and her alone, sometimes, when they play their club games.

He asks for her orders and he follows, grinning at her with a heady mix of adrenaline and excitement, and she grins back, heart fluttering over how he is so confident in her, how unlike all the other expectations that crush her life in their grip, this expectation is pure, clean, worshipful.

Keiichi believes her to be the best leader he has ever followed, someone clever, wise, cunning, and it is a belief that is solid and unshakeable (as she finds out sometimes, curled up in a dirt cell as he calls her sister by her name and vows to never, ever stop believing in her strength) and nigh-inhuman. She _feels_ superhuman, sometimes, when he looks at her with those shining eyes and says she can totally do whatever there is to be done, because she's Mion, not Mion Sonozaki, not heir to the Sonozaki Family, but just _Mion_ , she feels like she can stretch her hand to the stars and pluck them out of the sky with ease, feels like she can drag the world to lie at her feet and it _will_ , because she is that strong, that perfect, that unconquerable.

She wishes, sometimes, she can truly be herself with him, and its why she wants the doll, why she _treasures_ the doll in the cycles where he gives it to her. She wants Keiichi to see her as the cute girl she is, wants to spend time with him and have him shower her with more of that attention, go shopping together and an amusement park, and all the _normal_ things kids of their age do romantically, without being the Sonozaki heir and with all of that undivided admiration shining in his eyes.

* * *

What Mion loves about Rena is how supportive she is, how Rena can be her steady rock and her smiling sun all at once. Rena has been there longer than everyone except Shion, been the first to wake Mion up from her boring everyday school activities and make her know the joy of being friends with someone her own age, of being able to have fun with someone who could keep up with her.

Rena was soft and gentle and warm, healing the leftover pain from Shion's absence, from the fact that Mion's family had torn her first and only companion away from her and locked Shion far, far away, only letting her come back on holidays and vacations, and even then, reluctantly and rarely. Rena gave her companionship, and listened attentively whenever Mion had a problem, and always had something wise and logical to say, some good piece of advice to give.

Rena was sensitive: she knew things without those things needing to be said, she gave Mion space when she needed space and affection when she needed affection, whether Mion knew she needed these things or not. And Rena was always right, always supportive, always knowing when to do this and when it was better to do that.

* * *

What Mion loves about Satoshi is how he is so kind-hearted. Even though her family is so cruel to him, even though all she can do is put up a front, smile and give him a safe place, a club where he and Satoko can play and no one will hate them, he still smiles at her and "muu"s, doesn't hold a grudge or hide any resentment. He knows that she's not like her relatives and she'd stop them if she could, that she cares for him and wants him to have a better life.

Satoshi inspires her, makes her think about what it would be like if she faced Batcha down and shouted at her like Satoshi does for Satoko, defied Batcha and told her to bring Shion back _now_ , to bring her back and love her the same way she does Mion. That's what Satoshi does, that's how he gets his bruises and cuts, shielding his sister and taking the resulting punishment. If Mion wasn't such a coward, if she dared those same bruises and being locked in a cell or losing her place as heir, she might be able to help Shion like Satoshi helps Satoko.

And when she tells Satoshi this, he's gentle, telling her that its okay, that she is strong and brave in her own way and its not strange to be too scared to do things. He tells her he's always afraid, but having Satoko be hurt scares him more than the thought of pain, and that understanding makes her hug him tight, and in the dark nights of cycle after cycle, makes her cry as she cradles the place where her three fingernails had been, cry and apologize to Shion over and over, apologize to Satoshi's memory, apologize for everything that she cannot help with him gone now.

* * *

What Shion loved about Keiichi was his mind. It's a strange thing to love someone for, but how transcendently _idiotic_ he can be, it always makes her smile and laugh. Its so fun to trick him, to watch him fluster and blush and wave his arms in confusion and awkwardness. He's a dupe that falls for her tricks over and over again, but never holds a grudge for it, always grinning and threatening her afterwards, or not even threatening her at all, just scratching the back of his head and sheepishly chuckling as Mion roared at him.

She loves how normal he makes her feel, how she can study with him and do all the stupid cutesy girl things she could've done with Satoshi-kun with him, and no one cares, no one will stop or even dislike them for it, except maybe her jealous rivals for his heart. She loves how Keiichi doesn't see her body and assume her friendly flirtiness implies an obligation, that she's interested in more than just a relationship, that he can ask and take things. Despite his perversity, Keiichi takes her friendly interactions for what they are: friendliness, letting Shion set the pace and tamely following along in her wake.

And every so often, Keiichi will do something that brings her first love to mind, and blindside her out of nowhere with a pang of longing and love. She sees his devotion, his unshakeable faith in Mion in some cycles, how he looks what he thinks is his best friend straight in the eye and tells her that any murders she may have committed don't matter, that she is his best friend and that will never, ever change.

She wants that devotion for herself.

* * *

What Shion loves about Rena is her creativity. Rena is one of those moe girls you think can't possibly be real, but she is: everything she does has a cute little touch, a little something of panache and frills. The contents of her lunchboxes are cut into cute animal shapes, and her art projects are always rounded and adorable, a pop of eccentricity giving them extra endearment right along with the artist.

Rena has an unyielding passion that matches Shion's, and even in the worlds where nothing comes of that chill running down her spine at the bus stop, the chill that whispers that however vicious Shion's demon is, Rena hides a far greater demon within her mind, Shion still recognizes Rena as an equal opponent and comrade. Rena doesn't give in: she has to be beat down, just like Shion.

But unlike Shion, Rena never crumbles under the pressure of the world trying to crush her spirits, always shining brighter and smiling wider, as if in defiance. When she's told she's unladylike, she laughs, and when she's scolded for bringing home trash from the dump, she giggles modestly and strokes whatever garbage she brought home, like it was a compliment. When bad spirits drag her down, she smiles brighter for others, holding them and comforting them.

Shion is not exempt to that, and part of her spirit clings to Rena with everything that she is, loving her as fiercely as she loves her silently, knowing she can never say what she feels. There are many reasons: cultural convention, stronger rivals, lingering embarrassment, shyness, a dislike of being perceived as weak, but it is what it is, and she never tells.

* * *

What Shion loved about Satoshi was, well, everything. She loved how he disarmed her normally acute mimicry of her twin, how he noticed but didn't care, how she could sometimes almost be herself around him and he wouldn't judge her, not like everyone and everything she had ever known.

She loved his fierce streak of protectiveness, how even outmatched and weaker he would still fight for what he believed was right. Her heart ached for him when she saw those bruises and bumps, and her newly-grown nails dug into her palms like claws as she envisioned the bitch that caused them.

If Satoshi had not murdered Tamae Hojo on Watanagashi of 1982, Shion surely would have by 1983.

In the worlds where she doesn't forget herself to madness, she smothers Satoko with affection, and her heart thrills when she thinks of how Satoshi will come home and see the people he loves best being so happy and carefree, and then the joyous disbelieving shout before they both run to him and smother him in hugs…

Her attitude towards Satoko stirs an unexpected motherly urge in Shion, and she dreams of starting a family with Satoshi, of watching that tender care and fierce protectiveness day by day as they have children of their own, how she has found a family who truly accepts her and _loves_ her for who she is, how Satoshi will love her and their children will love her and their wicked, mischievous aunt Satoko will love her, and they all will be together and happy.

* * *

What Satoshi loves about Keiichi, when he meets him, is how clever Keiichi is, how comfortable and welcoming he makes this new Hinamizawa Satoshi comes back to. Keiichi is right there with a friendly smile and a handshake that very first day, and his amazing charisma and boundless energy enraptures Satoshi, like the sun. It's too bright to look at, but at the same time one can hardly dare look away.

Satoshi drinks in that light, that warmth, and he laughs with Keiichi, and he plays with Keiichi in the club games, exhilaration and dirt and sweat and pure, clean fun, and his heart flutters when Keiichi wraps an arm around his shoulders and laughs, when a friendly knee nudges his own and Keiichi grins and winks sidelong behind his fan of cards.

Their love is something shy and warm and innocent, new and awkward but at the same time so natural, casual touches that shift just a little bit closer when their eyes meet and their hearts jump, but at the same time it is bright and enthusiastic and sharp, like fireworks, Keiichi pulling Satoshi along and firing him up until he too laughs with joy and exuberance, until they go at the club games with the same enthusiasm and make an unbeatable team when they join together.

* * *

What Satoshi loved about Mion was her bluntness. Mion told you if she didn't like you, she didn't waste time with sullen glares and sidelong glances and harsh whispers. If you did something to make her mad or offend her, Mion's solution was a right hook and a left cross, not ostracization, and she loved as fiercely as she fought, scowling and bristling like an alpha wolf at those that dared to attack or whisper about those she cared for.

There was nothing of pretense about Mion, no falsehoods or deceptions, except when they played club games, and it was such an unmitigated _relief_ , when the worst consequences of him making a mistake was a stupid drawing scrawled on his face or a weird, frilly crossplay costume that he only had to wear until the games were over. Mion saw that relief, that release of tension, and she had organized this club purely for that purpose, had created a place just for him and Satoko to have fun in and feel protected and safe, to play with their friends. She gave up her time, her care, and some of her valuable games for them, and never a hint of weariness or regret crossed her face.

* * *

What Satoshi loves about Shion is a sense of belonging, a camaraderie. They are both outcasts, they are both ostracized by Hinamizawa, the place in which they live. They're both isolated, but Shion is peppery and sly, not taking that lying down. Satoshi's not stupid, though he is a bit airheaded: he saw the twitch of fear that crossed her face when they were confronted by the police and she admitted her real name, he saw the bandages on her fingers when they met a few days later. He doesn't know what happened, but he knows it was painful, and he knows, instinctively perhaps, that she had done it for him.

He was never around long enough to find out the details, but he knew that much.

Satoshi would never be so brave as that, to not hide meekly away in his apartment or some other place but instead boldly march outside and hide his unlawful presence by deception and sheer bravado. Having a twin might make doing so easy, but the fear, that twitch, those nails –Satoshi only had to face beatings and harsh glares at his failures.

But Shion was brave, and she was beautiful, and she was just like him –how could he not fall in love with her? How could anyone help it?

And her care, the fondness in the way she teased him, how she carelessly told him things he didn't know and scolded him in a way that never made him feel afraid (and wasn't that a rare thing), how she skipped along with her hands clasped behind her back and her nose in the air, relentlessly mocking the things he too disliked, but with far more wit and acuity…Satoshi never knew her long enough to truly plunge head over heels in love, but he was never far from it when the Syndrome took him.

* * *

What Rena loved about Keiichi was how well they fit together. She loved making sweets, he loved eating them. She loved playing in the trash heap, he loved showing off how strong he was (occasionally earning himself some embarrassment) at pulling things out for her. She loved sweet words and cheesy lines, and he was from the big city and had read more than she'd ever seen in her life. He could repeat them verbatim, too, and sometimes liked to tease her on their morning walks by doing so.

The world was quiet when they were together in the morning like that, just the two of them walking and chattering easily about everything and nothing at all. They talked about the weather, about the club, about their games, about everyone else in Hinamizawa, about his father's job as an artist, about how she coaxed her own to find a job of his own, about the things they read, about the homework in class, about the things Keiichi had seen but she had only heard of, about the good and bad things she had seen and done when she was in the city, too. Those talks were like a web binding them together, slowly drawing closer and tighter, but it was something they never noticed until they looked at one another and felt their hearts turn over.

Rena loved that he never treated her like something fragile, like someone he needed to hold back for. In the club games, they both went full-throttle, and there was always something so incredibly exhilarating about facing off against someone like they were your archrival while still knowing the two of you were the best of friends. It got even better when the club games took them outside, how they ran and jumped and fought and ducked and dodged, laughing and vowing threats at one another with scraped knees and grungy faces.

And in more dangerous times, it was a thrill and a flutter in her heart as she hacked and cleaved her way through the Yamainu threatening her friends, knowing and trusting always that Keiichi was right behind her and _he was_ , a solid warm presence she could almost feel against her back as he stuck to her blind spot like glue and they whirled around each other in a deadly pirouette of blade and bludgeon, smacking and slashing at their enemies in the dark.

* * *

What Rena loved about Mion was how Mion trusted her, how Mion implicitly told her in every movement and thought that Rena wasn't filthy, wasn't someone who made bad choices, was someone pure and bright and to be cherished. Mion made her _feel_ happy, feel like the mask she wore was genuine for a few precious moments at a time. As their friendship progressed, not only did Mion make Rena forget that mask, she even peeled it away for hours at a time, creating a wonderland of fun and friends that had Rena laughing with utter sincerity, her heart as light and shining as a soap bubble.

And Mion did more than peel away Rena's mask, she erased it, eroding it day by fun-filled day, showering Rena with affection and challenge and childish play, filling her with wonder and love and making the grey, sad days a rarity rather than the norm, those days when sometimes the dark cloud in her heart covered over everything. But it was like the summer thunderstorm, there and gone in a night, and Rena always greeted Mion with a smile that only grew brighter at whatever ridiculously outrageous extravagance Mion planned or had to tell her about.

Mion made her happy, and more than that, Mion made her feel not only as if she belonged, but that belonging was a part of her, as much as her own skin and hair. The Hinamizawa Club wouldn't be complete without Rena, that much was carved in stone and in the flesh of Mion's heart, and Rena felt that with every touch and smile.

* * *

What Rena loved about Shion was how Shion struggled and clung and didn't give up, not even a little bit, no matter how awful the world was to her. When Rena hid her feelings behind a brightly smiling mask, Shion got mad, got furious, hissing and spitting like a cat with her eyes blazing in righteous anger, nails clenched into her fists and teeth bared, down and dirty and _angry_ , always ready to fight for what was right.

And when things didn't go their way, when Shion was battered and beaten by the cruel choices of the world, she crystalized all her feelings, all her rage and sorrow, into a gleaming facet of her heart and never let them go, never forgot her feelings or allowed time to wash them away, but held on tightly, choosing to suffer rather than move on, preserving all of these feelings against the day when she might finally be able to realize them again. It wasn't a refusal to look at the future, it was a love that treasured these things so much that Shion refused to ever erase or cheapen them by forgetfulness and leaving them behind.

And when everything was torn away, Shion did not yield or fall with those memories, but rather stood defiant to the last, sharing her passion and her strength and her fire with all those around her, striding forward first into danger to either shield others with her body or serve as the head of a phalanx, and not caring about either outcome, only that those she loved would be kept safe.

* * *

What Rena loved about Satoshi was how he knew, like no one else she knew, what it felt like to be struck by the curse. It was a crawling, itching, creeping fear, one you couldn't express to others without looking deranged or attention-seeking, but she _knew_ , and he knew too, what it felt like. It was a silent comradeship, a feeling expressed more in silent nods and looks, of matching bruise-colored shadows under the eye and weary smiles.

She admired his mind, how Satoshi could juggle various tasks but still sometimes come up hilariously shorthanded, how his ditzy nature sometimes overcame him despite his good technical skills. She loved how Satoshi could still smile naturally after everything that had happened to him, how he could laugh and play with her and the others and still make _her_ laugh, with his clumsy ways and his shy, heartfelt smile.

* * *

What Rika loved about Satoko was her resilience, her ingenuity, her bravery. Rika had lived hundreds of years trapped in the same maze, but she still looked to Satoko for inspiration, for strength and courage. If Satoko could overcome a slew of harsh parents, of adults who beat, humiliated, and ripped her mind open with fear and degradation, and turn into the smirking, sly, spunky and confident Satoko that Rika knew and loved, what was the mere fate of death? How could Rika complain when her every cycle merely ended in a greyed-out haze, and she just watched as her friends committed their crimes? What claim did she have to suffering, when Satoko had endured so much?

It was frustrating, though. She had the experience of an adult, but not the mind or body, and she yearned for Satoko in ways that her mind and body could not comprehend. She wanted to stay with Satoko always, in every cycle, wanted to protect her and be strong for her, wanted to cradle and shelter her and, it must be confessed, prompt the curse towards her wicked relatives.

There have been worlds in which Rika watched, as Keiichi caved in Teppei Hojo's skull with a metal bat. She watched, and she _smiled_.

And the worlds of living with Satoko, every world except for the most unspeakable one, the one where that uncle returned, living with her as though they were relatives or even husband and wife, Rika loved that too. Their had such a comfy domesticity, were so close and comfortable with each other, in ways that Rika knew would not be possible as the two of them aged. But for now, they moved together in perfect sync, always knowing what was in which place within the outbuilding they had made their home, always knowing what chores needed to be done and what kind of smile needed to be offered to greet the day and each other.

* * *

What Satoko loved about Rika was her devotion, her care and wisdom. Alone out of everyone she knew and loved, Rika had stayed, and would always stay. Satoko knew this instinctively, somehow, unaware that Rika had truly stayed a hundred lifetimes with her in their house, but still feeling the weight of all those loving summers in her heart. Rika was always there to offer wisdom just a touch beyond what a child of their age would know, her beautiful eyes large and dark with secret knowledge.

They would giggle and poke each other on their futons, some nights, as Satoko asked question after question, each one more ludicrous than the last, and Rika would somehow answer them all as correctly as such ridiculous questions could be. Those times were like being at a sleepover, warm and snuggly in her pajamas and with her bestest best friend in the world by her side, and it was an innocent, childish sort of fun that would form the jewel of her childhood memories, in the sparse fragments that the Great Hinamizawa Disaster did not happen and Satoko lived past her childhood.

Rika was her sidekick, the innocent blinking eyes that hid a smug compliance with Satoko's tricks, the little angel look that so often got them out of trouble. Rika was her rock, the one that always backed Satoko up when it counted, more often than she knew, more often than she could understand in those dark early nights when she clung to Rika and wept, and Rika somehow knew exactly what to say to soothe her into a dreamless sleep finally free of nightmares.


	79. Day 19: Tears (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rika's abilities in this one are nearly identical to Nightlight/Jack Frost from _Guardians of Childhood_ , aka the counterpart of _Rise of the Guardians_. I know that keeps sneaking in here, but it all just has such gorgeous lore! I mean, a dagger of tears? Nightlight _does_ that, on the regular! 
> 
> Anyways, happy birthday to me! I am now 21 years old and I think literally nothing in the world short of a pension is illegal for me age-wise anymore, which is…a weird feeling. I can drink, fuck, smoke, vote, and drive in literally every country on the planet now. I am no longer too young for anything.
> 
> I don't like it. Let's rewind back to the age of ten. Things were better at ten. I had a sense of wonder and joy and I could balance directly on my chest when I was trying to climb onto Large Flat Things like a cat without it hurting.

Tears are worth many things in mythology.

In Greece, the tears of a woman who dared to taunt the gods marked the rock she became, an eternal mourning for her dead children.

Chinese folklore described mermaids as shedding pearls for tears.

Unicorn tears were said to heal.

And Rika, she could use tears, could use them and make them into blades and daggers, for crystalized tears were sadness and joy and strength all mixed in one, and the sadness only increased the power her icy blades held.

With these tearful swords she fought against the powers of darkness, guarding and guiding her friends who were so much younger and yet so much older. And she did not fight alone, for Satoko was right beside her, fighting with the glow of the stars and the dancing forest of a thousand moonbeams.

And Rika did not sleep, for she was the light in the darkness, and to sleep was to subside into darkness itself.


	80. Day 20: My Inspiration (2020)

I think what I really love about _Higurashi_ is how it layers things. I knew it was a murder-horror anime before going into it, but even then, watching _Higurashi_ for the first time was a treat. We're introduced to your typical moe anime cast –tough tomboy leaderish girl, demure average schoolgirl, feisty mischievous child, cute small child, token male lead– but _Higurashi_ takes that a step further, giving a logical reason for all these wildly unalike people to be in the same friend group –they live in the back end of beyond with only 18 children in the class, themselves included, and this group has a game club.

Of course, as the series progresses, we slowly get to know more about the characters. Keiichi isn't just the dumb token lead, he's a former school all-star that blew off steam by shooting kids with a fake gun, and moved to Hinamizawa to start over. The story introduces his crime, Keiichi's obvious regret, and then a confession from his perspective. (Or at least, in the manga it does. I was dumbfounded when I rewatched that episode of the anime and realized they just left it at "he used to shoot small kids.") Mion isn't just a tomboyish leader, she's also the heir to a complex and tradition-heavy family organization. Rena isn't just a smiling ditz, she's a intuitive girl with a history of mental issues and trauma. Same with Satoko, and Rika's deeper characterization, of course, needs no words.

What really invests me in this series (and gets me through writing all these prompts every June, lol) is how deep you can dig and keep finding things. The framework for _Higurashi_ is amazing just in itself: the plot is solid, the characters are ever-growing and almost all of them achieve the completion of their character arcs, even minor characters like Oishi and Akasaka. Oishi's so gung-ho about the murders because the first victim was a father figure to him: he's introduced as a suspicious, pushy cop that gets Keiichi into trouble, but as the series progresses Oishi's deeper motivations are revealed, and he changes to a proud, desperate man who isn't afraid to put his nose to the grindstone and deeply cares about protecting the citizens of Hinamizawa. Oishi's hatred of the Sonozakis is also resolved, and he even has a friendly conversation with them. In the manga, he laughs and cries with relief when Rika tells him that the Sonozakis aren't actually behind the murders, and Hanyuu delivers a very moving line about how not having anyone to hate anymore is a good feeling, rather than a bad one. There's even a postcredit snippet in the manga where Oishi and Mion and Shion's mother start playing mahjong together after everything's resolved (and the riot police "may or may not" have been deployed to keep an eye on that).

The plot, characters, and lore of _Higurashi_ are well-knit and constructed, and the story itself is genuinely moving and endearing, and a fascinating take on human morality and decision-making. The time cycle lets us see things from multiple angles, the consequences of various decisions, in a very interesting way.

You may also notice I say "but in the manga" a lot, in both author notes for other prompts and in this explanation. Actually, for new viewers (aka not the people reading this, hehe) I'd suggest watching the anime first. In my opinion, both the manga and anime adaptions have some serious good and bad points –I have yet to play through the games, but its on my list. The anime, in my opinion, creates the larger flow of the story better –Rika's whole secret protagonist-dom, the time cycle, etc. are all mostly under wraps until the very last second, something I feel adds to the story rather than detracts from it. For the first few arcs, lets say Abducted by Demons up until Time Wasting, the audience really just needs the knowledge that these are all different scenarios or time loops, and that's it. Rika is suspect, but not obviously someone who knows things, and its not clear just how much she's aware of. By jarring contrast, when I first read the Abducted by Demons manga, at the end after everyone dies Rika comforts a crying Satoko and stares off into the middle distance while saying they'll see the others again in the next world. It was so abrupt and contrary to the entire tone of the manga thus far –Rika and Satoko were barely featured– I feel a new viewer would have their experience with _Higurashi_ spoiled. _Higurashi_ isn't about Rika until much later: initially, it's a murder-mystery series to be solved, and the addition of Rika's much-more-obvious cycling distracts from the mystery the author, at the time, is trying to draw our attention towards.

However, I also say "in the manga they did this" a lot because the anime basically cut that out and simplified the plot. A lot of stuff in the manga is not in the anime, and while some lines might make it in, generally these scenes are cut for brevity –something I don't always agree with, but then again, I didn't animate the series. Keiichi's explanation of his crimes in Atonement is a good example: while I wouldn't ask for a flashback sequence like in the manga, a voiceover or something would be nice. Just a line dropped in there to counter Rena's statement of "ew pervert who used to shoot small girls." Contrarywise, stuff like the full (fuller?) scene where Rika tells Oishi about the truth behind the murders in Festival Music, which is longer in the manga, I can completely understand why they cut it down. While the extra information was nice, it was not vital to the plot.

Hence, by my logic, the _Higurashi_ manga is better served as supplementary material _after_ you watch the anime, but that's my opinion, of course.

Anyways, my _Higurashi_ muse. What I love to do, and what all of everything above this serves to construct for me, is dig deeper into characterizations and lore. Rena had her mother leave her and went briefly crazy due to Hinamizawa Syndrome –she also seems to be coded for depression, or at least depressive episodes, to a significant margin in both the anime and manga, especially in Atonement. How can I play with that? How does that affect her? How can I expand on it?

Rika is one of my favorite sandboxes for this, so to speak. She's lived hundreds of years, what kind of experiences must she have had? I like to follow the lore, clues, and character traits to their logical end. For example, even though Rika is hundreds of years old, she's been a child that whole time. We know this because (in the manga) she sees and reacts to Hanyuu as an infant being held by her mother, and that Time-Wasting showed she was cognizant of her full range of reincarnated memories five years before 1983, because she has asked Akasaka for help multiple times, enough so that she can form contingencies around him trying to use a phone and cut multiple lines before he can do so. This is also why, unlike most translations, I always say she's hundred _ **s**_ of years instead of _**a hundred**_ years, because Rika is ten years old. Arguably she's being reincarnated back to the beginning of her life every time, but for minimalism's sake I'll say she's being turned back five years, to just before Akasaka showing up. So every time she reincarnates and lives through her failed world, that's five years.

100 divided by 5 is twenty. By the Rika-is-only-100/110-years-old argument, Rika would only have gone through twenty world cycles, and if she's reincarnated way back to the beginning, she would have only lived through ten cycles. This, obviously, is impossible, because between the anime and manga there are ten cycles she is involved in directly: Abducted by Demons, Cotton Drifting, Time Wasting, Beyond Midnight (manga-only), Eye-Opening, Atonement, Disaster Awakening (anime-only), Massacre, and Festival Music. This list disregards the worlds introduced in the OVAs, such as Outbreak and Dice-Killing (though Dice-Killing was in the manga), and Rika also talks about other world cycles we don't ever see, such as ones where Keiichi never moved to Hinamizawa. (She mentions that that world doesn't happen often, and calls it desolate.)

Point being, for Rika to have experienced all of these worlds more than once, which she says she has and evidence obviously shows she has, she would have hit multiple hundreds in age-experience a long time ago. Like, the most conservative estimate (five years) says that experiencing the worlds just twice would hit one hundred years, and for Rika to memorize things so precisely she knows the day and sometimes even the time things happen, it would probably be more towards ten repetitions of each cycle, perhaps even dozens.

Arguing against this, of course, is the fact Hanyuu only reincarnated her about a month back in Festival Music, but again, Rika had been reincarnated all the way back to 1978 multiple times, and she also expressed considerable alarm and shock at the "shortness" of the time this go around.

See, this right here is my general mode of operation when writing _Higurashi_ , when I'm not adapting scenes or doing fun little AUs. I like to investigate things and figure them out, foil them like a weird math equation and then present my findings to the rest of the fandom in some hopefully interesting way.

I hope whoever reads these and reads down this far is inspired to write some _Higurashi_ stuff on their own. It'd be nice to have some comrades, though I'll keep on rowing this boat myself if I have to!


	81. Day 21: Never Again (2020)

Another just because ~~I'm lazy~~ , one thing I am NEVER doing again is writing the prompts as June unfolds. I did that the first time around in 2018, and…ugh. That was a HASSLE.

See, despite my magnificent writing and equally magnificent ego, upon contemplation I've realized that I don't really get… _into_ fandoms. In the traditional talky-speaky way, that is. I write, and by god do I write (this annual prompt fill is a good example), and I'd like to think I contribute good, solid content to all the fandoms I write in, but there is a decent lack of communication between me and literally everyone else in said fandom. See, I write, but that's _it_. So my only interactions with others fans is basically them leaving comments on my works and me responding to said comments, and for people who have been following my works for years, I do have _some_ rapport and friendliness, but there's still a disconnect, whether of distance or of time. I also look at other content too, of course, but that's not communication as such.

Point being, ladies, gentlemen, and gentlethem, I have NO IDEA what I'm doing here, and don't let my good writing fool you. The first prompt list in 2018 I scrambled to get done, then I had the brilliant idea of arranging said list and writing it in advance. Aside from serial procrastinating that meant I still wasn't done by the time June 2019 rolled around, that idea worked great. And in 2019, I noticed that some other content creators tentatively followed my lead, but never completed the list or went too far. Was this on me? Its not like I expect people to follow some random author's pronouncements, nor should they if they don't want to. Was I expecting too much of the people who did try a few prompts? I mean, I'd had the same problem, and I could whip up 500 or so words pretty easily. The others were drawing, and from experience I know that one's _hard_.

Because I'm not so much with other content creators or fans, I didn't know the usual protocol for prompt lists/fandom months. Who's in charge of the other ones? Is it a top fan thing, or something the original creators announced, or what? Heck if I knew. Heck if I know now. Was I doing something wrong? This I do not and did not know.

Then, with my trademark panache and lack of worry about consequences, I was like, fuck it, I'M the one in charge of this fandom month, ish, as much as anyone could be, since I'm really the only one gunning for it, and _I_ say what goes. If I wanted other people to participate, and I do, it was up to me to make participation easier and more comprehensible.

Hence, this year I posted the prompt list itself in May (I originally wanted to post it May 1st, but of course was kneecapped by procrastination and forgetfulness once again), in advance of June itself. People can have more time, like me, to actually work on whatever prompts they want to do.

In hindsight, I was basically forcing people to do exactly what I swore to never again do, and that was write prompts on a day-by-day basis from the first of the month. Sorry about that for whoever thought about participating or did participate for a few days! We're trying something different this go around.

I'm also planning to release the June 2021 prompt list at the end of this June, so that like me, people can have the entire year to work on their thirty prompt fills. Because, looking back on it again, how much is twenty extra days worth for thirty prompt fills? Did I give you guys enough yield time?

Higurashi is one of those lovely fandoms that its so small you can basically do whatever you want, within reason. Trying to do an annual RWBY prompt list would be way harder, and posting the list in advance would probably lead to _so much_ confusion.

Thoughts?


	82. Day 22: Online (2020)

Keiichi Maebara was a man of many wisdoms. One of those wisdoms, for example, was _curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back_ , an attitude that occasionally gave him grief. Another was the importance of adhering to the club rules, of course.

And thirdly, something that had not needed to come up for the main portion of his life, was _never let Satoko on the internet_.

Admittedly, it took forever and a half to hook up even the most simple of broadbands –some of Hinamizawa still didn't even have electricity– but once they had, well, the club may have grown up, but they hadn't lost their childish spirit.

The _problem_ with this was, of course, Satoko. She had grown up, but she had never lost that diabolical sense of mischief that had made so many of Keiichi's schooldays and club activities a misery.

And with the internet, came opportunity.

And with opportunity, came electronic mail-ordering.

And with that, with Satoko, came trouble.

Keiichi's first inkling of this was when Satoshi had come in smiling, mentioning how Satoko had ordered bath-crayons she could use to scribble things in the bathtub as she thought. And admittedly, that was cute and wholesome. The rest of the gang had been invested, and Keiichi had even borrowed a red one and had some fun with it in his own shower, drawing half-baked plots and connecting the strings in some of the mystery novels he read.

It should've stopped there. Of course, it didn't.

Next was a tangle of bungee cords. Then a set of rock-climbing ropes. Then a hang glider. Then a paintball gun. Then a comprehensive encyclopedia of urban warfare and trap-setting books. Then a set of professional hardware, like a construction worker's kit.

Satoko _kept ordering stuff_ , stuff that no average citizen should reasonably order and use, and Keiichi and the others went about in a nervous, tense state of waiting, wondering what horrors Satoko was about to construct and wreak upon them. Sometimes she showed them, sometimes they found out the hard way, sometimes she gave a frighteningly detailed presentation with graph charts, postboards, and a pointer, talking about the new defenses she had added on her special trap mountain. It'd originally been Sonozaki property, and Mion had half-jokingly given the Hojo family the rights to it on Satoko's 18th birthday. Rena joked during one of these presentations about the mountain now being practically impregnable even to a modern army.

Keiichi wished they could not take that statement seriously. But alas, it was probably all too true.

The next faux pas was all on him, however, much to his grief. After a detailed lecture on all the ways she had built up the defenses on her mountain, Keiichi had dismissively made a comment about how Satoko may as well build her own fort atop the mountain, since she was defending it like a feudal lord.

The next online order to show up on the Hojo doorstep was several metric tons of granite, as well as a truckload of mortar mix. The mixer and several other construction tools arrived a few days later, and Keiichi was all but tearing his hair out as Satoko loaded block after block into her beat-up muddy truck and drove them up the mountain, and slowly but surely a fort rose at its highest peak.

He was going to convince Satoshi to lock her damn account before Satoko created a prefecture up there.


	83. Day 23: Failure (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this was also a prompt in last year's list. Whoops! (And ironic, considering the prompt.)

Summer is game over  
Winter, spring, fall are all fun  
But June is failure


	84. Day 24: Rebirth (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its very irritating to me that there are so many arcs that are game-only and therefore impossible for me to get my grabby mitts on anytime soon. (This refers to Hanyuu's backstory more specifically, since _apparently_ there's a game-only arc that covers it in pretty exhaustive detail.)

* * *

This is not your destruction.

This is your _birth_.

–Unknown

* * *

Rika Furude's eyes snap open, and she lurches up, gasping. It's like a nightmare is chasing her, grainy and dark and flickering around the edges as it creeps and slides across the floor like sentient goo, eager to seep inside her cracks and destroy her, dissolve her away.

But that's alright. Everything's alright. She just –she just had a bad dream. There's nothing in the waking world to chase after her, no fear in the bright golden light of the morning and the sleepy summer heat of June.

June…

Déjà vu is a strange thing, like a ripple in a pond, a brief ghost of familiarity that wisps against the senses before it is gone, gone forever, unable to be recovered. As brief as a whisper and as subtle as a spiderweb.

Rika shakes her head and gets up, throwing aside her cotton blanket and neatly rolling up her futon. Her mother will scold her if she leaves it out like a messy child.

"Rika."

Hanyuu's fretful voice makes her start, and Rika turns to see her ghostly friend drifting there near the window with a frightening expression. Its uncertainty and fear, no strangers to Hanyuu's face, but the depth of her emotion and the naked worry that stands in her eyes makes Rika gulp and clench the blankets.

"Rika, do you remember?" Hanyuu asks nervously, floating closer and putting a hand out.

"I don't-"

It was just a dream. Just- the sight of her bloody body splayed over the altar when she was older, the memory of a life years and years older than she is now, that's…

That's not.

It can't-

No.

Hanyuu's hand brushes her shoulder, and she enfolds Rika in a ghostly hug, the huge pink sleeves of her ceremonial outfit briefly blocking out the world.

Rika clings to that intangible weight and cries in confusion and fear, unaware that this is the first of many, that this is the first opening of her long, long life and the thousand cycles of pain that she and her friends must endure. That eventually the event of her death will cease to matter, becoming only a stopping point, the glitch and the Game Over before she goes back to the beginning to try again.

This is the first time Rika Furude is reborn, the first time she has been killed, and the moment Rika Furude is no longer an innocent child.

* * *

Golden child,  
Lion boy;  
Tell me what it's like to conquer

Fearless child,  
Broken boy;  
Tell me what it's like to burn.

–Unknown

* * *

Keiichi awakes, and when he awakes, it's like jumping off a cliff, a cold slap of water to the face and then plunging down, down, and drowning.

It's just a brief moment, once, like slumbering Father Time had stirred in his sleep, when his eyes open wide and he _remembers_.

He remembers paranoia clawing at his brain, remembers a world that seems to crowd and press in on him, looming with twisted, cackling shapes, remembers the restless itch of his skin and the pounding fear pulsing through his veins.

He remembers Rena, and Mion, his two most precious friends.

He remembers blood, and pain, and screaming, and death.

He remembers wielding the slippery bat in his hands.

And he remembers, like peering through a murky veil, Mion's gentle and not-twisted smile as she uncapped a marker to draw on his shirt to cheer him up, rather than a needle to kill him. He remembers the shock on her face at the first swing of the bat into her skull, the shock and the betrayal and confusion that twists a knife in Keiichi's heart now that he sees it again with clear eyes.

He remembers Rena, sitting slumped in his bloody bedroom with Mion lying dead beside her, Keiichi screaming and howling like a madman, clutching her broken arm, her forehead bleeding from what was probably a concussion, and she looked up at him and smiled, smiled gently, reaching for him, telling him it would be okay, and he didn't need to be afraid.

He remembers swinging the bat down through her outstretched arms, and how they crumpled as he delivered blow after blow to her skull.

Keiichi remembers and he howls from grief and confusion and rage, rage at his blind past self, collapsing like a puppet with his strings cut.

And though Rika watches him carefully, he is never not the same, like tiny flakes of past tragedies are building up in his heart, subtle but sure as cobwebs, guiding him away from the horrors and bad ends he and the others had suffered under so much.

* * *

Now, do not misunderstand me;  
when I call myself a shell  
I mean a used up bullet casing.

As in, the aftermath of something lethal,  
As in, an echo of inflicted evil.

–Amrita Chakraborty

* * *

Rena sits in the water of her bathtub, quiet and motionless. It's in the small hours of the night, the dead hours, as she has sometimes thought to herself. The hours past midnight when nothing happens and no one is around, and those that are awake are isolated in a bubble of darkness and peaceful silence.

This holds true now. Her father- her father is asleep, and the house is dark except for the one lonely lightbulb here in the bathroom, a pale and watery light that pushes fragilely at the darkness around her, leaving Rena in splendid isolation in a weak pool of light with the soft black and crickets chirping of the world outside.

She sits naked in the bathtub, hands wrapped around her knees, knees pressed to her chest, staring ahead. Her shoulders quiver, a little, with leftover nervous shocks, but she does not move, except to blink, slowly. Her eyes are haunted.

It had felt so _real_.

So real, that she had awoken and stumbled to the bathroom, running the water as quietly as she could and scrubbing at her hands, before pulling them away as though the water burned when she realized that she was washing her clammy hands like she was trying to rid them of blood. That was when she ran the bath and stripped off her pajamas, climbing in and huddling into the water, hoping to wash away the scent of fear and sweat that had been branded into her skin.

So real, it felt like a mere gasp and a twitch separated her from that living nightmare, one moment of slipped control or lost effort.

Her arms tightened around her legs.

_So real…_

Her father was having the difficulties he had in her dream. That woman –she had yet to flaunt herself in the house as she had in the dream, but deep inside Rena knew it was only a matter of time.

Perhaps, even more than its vividness, that was what frightened her so about that dream: how plausible it was. Here she was, and here was that woman, and here were a hundred thousand other things that matched up to her life perfectly. And yet, she dreamed. And yet, it seemed like a natural progression of her life.

Murder. Bloodshed. And the stench of gasoline and swirling madness before-

She couldn't. She _wouldn't_.

…wouldn't she?

Lately, her thoughts kept straying to that dream, thinking about how easily that would solve all her problems. Something warned her away from it, some instinct deeper than thought, but the thoughts still crept in and nagged at her.

She would have to talk to Mi-chan about this in the morning. Mi-chan was the club leader, she would understand. She would know how to stop these dreams.

And if not, well, Mi-chan _did_ have a yakuza group under her theoretical command…

* * *

You've seen my descent.  
Now watch my rising.

–Rumi

* * *

Shion's last moments in many worlds, the worlds in which she had gone mad, were always strangely peaceful. She had not ever acted the martyr or the tragic hero: she was a stone-cold, ruthless, merciless killer, and she had known it, and she had played that part to perfection. The moment she had attacked and inadvertently killed Oni-Baba, there was no going back, and she had known it. So instead of hesitating or fluttering with her supposed tragedy, she had firmed her jaw and strode straight down the path she had made for herself, proud and strong and ready to kill all those who had harmed her beloved Satoshi-kun. Anything besides that revenge was irrelevant, and she would become the cruelest and most sadistic of demons to see it through without batting an eye.

But later, when she fell from the roof, she landed on her head on a balcony, and perhaps that crack and the blood oozing out did something, for all her hazy memories were of "Mion," her now-dead younger sister, crying and saying she'd wait for her behind the hill. And Shion wanted to come with, wanted to go and comfort her, and she turned over and plunged into open air again.

As she fell to her death, she saw what she had done and regretted it. Next time- next time, she would do better, she promised the hazy image of Satoshi-kun wavering against the moon. She would do better, be better, prove herself more worthy of him, of herself.

Whether she knew it or not, that wish drove her in her smothering and coddling of Satoko in those latter worlds. The memories, impulses, and dreams were dim and hazy at best, but the feelings connected with them were all too real. It frightened her. That she would forget the first and most precious thing her dearest Satoshi-kun asked of her…unthinkable. Did she not know, did she not suspect, that Satoshi-kun had committed murder to save Satoko-chan, even though he knew that no one in all of Hinamizawa would help him if he was caught? His sister meant more to him than the world, and out of all his friends, he entrusted Satoko-chan to Shion, knowing and trusting her more than all the rest. How could she betray him like that? How could she betray his trust in such a way?

Never.

Unthinkable.

It was a lesson beaten into her with blood, tears, pain, and madness, but the Shion of worlds after rose out of that tempering like shining steel, noble and clean.

* * *

That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale, over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.

– _Deathless_ , Catherynne Valente

* * *

Hanyuu was not Hanyuu when she awoke. She went by a different name, was a different identity. But Hanyuu is the name she was and would be known by.

Sleep clung to her with thick, sludgy tendrils, like the warm oozing blackness that had pulled at her, something like and unlike a cocoon, a stifling pressure that was at the same time soft and malleable.

She remembered pain, and she remembered grief, and she remembered blood, and lightning flashing overhead. She remembered her daughter, and she remembered being struck down.

She was afraid, and felt small and scared. And when she looked at her hands, they were soft and petite, and they trembled. She was a child again, something frail and meek, in a tiny cherubic body that was easier to tuck away and hide. Reaching up, she felt her horns, and they were still there, and a pang hit her heart, remembering hatred and harsh words spat at her. She had died to recover the pain of those words, to wash clean the hearts and minds of her village and the people within it.

She had been offered as a sacrifice, and been reborn.

Hanyuu looked out over a swamp amidst a driving rain, and recognized the clinging, wet warmth that had enveloped her prior to her awakening. Her body had been struck down, and like an infant in the womb, this swamp had enveloped her, and when she had been released, she was in a new form.

She floated across the swamp, down towards the village, to see the remnants of her handiwork. And she breathed a great sigh of relief, for the people were calm and safe –but her relief turned to pain, for none of them could see her, not even her daughter who had struck her down, not even her daughter's daughter, not even her daughter's husband.

And Hanyuu wept, as she would weep throughout all the years she was unseen, and her tears would only come faster as her descendants began to commit atrocities upon her altar.


	85. Day 25: Breaking Away (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the wiki, Oishi technically smokes a fictional "Gaster" brand of cigarettes, which is an imitation of the actual Caster brand produced in Japan. Since I don't have to pander to copywrite laws, I just wrote in that he smokes the actual brand. Also, his name is apparently spelled the same as a brandname of Asian snacks, and resembles the adjective "delicious," hence the precinct joke of giving him those sweets.
> 
> Hard not to talk about this, since I actually live in a suburb of Minneapolis, but I wrote this prompt during the rioting and whatnot in Minneapolis/St. Paul over George Floyd's murder, and the officer that did it had just been arrested. As a white person who doesn't live in either of these cities directly, I don't really have the right to cast an opinion on what's going on right now, but I will say its…weird?… that international news is happening just a thirty-minute drive away. Like, not weird-weird, but just an odd feeling to know that historical stuff is happening in my metaphorical backyard. My field placement teacher, who lives in St. Paul and actually only lives a mile from all these events, evacuated to Eagan today.
> 
> And maybe writing about a character who's a police officer isn't the best thing right now, but I wanted to do something that, however briefly, showed us something good in the midst of all this bad. It's also pretty much canonical that Oishi don't give a fuck about his superiors and will absolutely do the right thing even if it costs him his job and life savings, given what he did for the gang in Festival Music.

It was a running commentary amongst the officers of the Okinomiya PD that Oishi practically lived at his desk. And that desk was a testament to his personality: an ashtray overflowing with Caster cigarettes, innumerable files in neatly-labeled black binders, thick as textbooks, piled up on both sides of the clear space in which he did his work, a box of tissues, a fold-in false knife and a bulletproof vest in one of the drawers, along with a fair number of those prank candy and snack packages that the others gave him. Said desk was also backed by the glass-fronted shelves of their other reference materials, and near one of the weapons lockers.

No one knew where he kept his real materials, the things everyone knew he was working on to try and track down the Sonozaki family murderers. They could see him working on those files all the times, muttering with a cigarette in hand or stuck contemplatively in the corner of his mouth, searching, searching, for one loose thread, one snag, one clue that he could seize and could lead him back to the ones responsible for killing Oyassan, the dam foreman, and all the rest of the murders linked to Oyashiro-sama's curse.

But when joking rookies or concerned friends rifled through his desk, wondering about the files, they were never there.

Truth be told, when Oishi did find snags –and that wasn't often, and frequently little more than gut instincts on his part– he rarely wrote them down. Evidence, evidence, that was the hallmark of the police method, and when he spotted inconsistencies, well, that wasn't near enough to even try to effect a warrant, never mind an arrest, especially when he couldn't _find_ those culprits. In that kidnapping with the minister's grandson, those men hadn't moved like common thugs, they'd moved like men with training and experience. When the younger Sonozaki twin had fallen for Satoshi Hojo, who was almost certainly a murderer, it would make more than a little sense for the Sonozaki family to pressure him into running away, lest his arrest tar their daughter's reputation.

But telling his superiors that the men he'd fought were suspiciously competent was irrelevant when the grandson was returned, the case was solved, and those men disappeared into the wind.

And he couldn't _prove_ anything about Satoshi Hojo's disappearance, not without the key witness of Satoshi Hojo himself, or the ones that pressured him, and Oishi knew full well that no peon of the Sonozaki head would breathe a word to the police, unofficial or otherwise.

So he stagnated.

What was all the more frustrating for Oishi was how his instincts, honed and keen from years as a police officer, were all too often right, but the structure of his country's laws and simple circumstance kept him from pressing the issue. And unbeknownst to him, all too often he stumbled on the truth, but disregarded it due to his erroneous focus on the Sonozakis, or missed it just by a whisper due to the simple fact that he did not hold all the pieces of the puzzle.

Well should he be suspicious of the men who had kidnapped the minister's grandson, for they were members of a secret task force: just one that guarded the clinic from any interlopers trying to discover its secrets.

And too many times, in the hospital, when he questioned a survivor –sometimes Keiichi, sometimes Rena, sometimes Mion or Satoko– he would ask the wrong questions, ignorant and unaware of the secret research being done by Takano and the political ramifications thereof, and when he grasped some threads –Rena Ryugu's bloodied hat, the witness to Rika Furude's murder– the realization came too late, for her would arrive at the hospital with the only witness quiet and still, overcome by a suspiciously convenient heart failure.

But in one world, the last world, he learned the truth, and it was a relief, an unmitigated relief to let go of his hatred and realize that there was no need for it, to redirect his passion and his strength into protecting the citizens of Hinamizawa from a threat far worse than the curse, had they known it.

And little did Oishi know it, but that moment in which he thwarted the actions of Tokyo and the Yamainu was the fulfillment of a hundred worlds of stagnation, a moment when he cast aside his poorly-conceived notions of the Sonozakis and instead pushed forward and stopped the evil that, in so many other words, had destroyed the people and the village he had sworn to protect.


	86. Day 26: Forever and a Day (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The joke behind Rika's flower crown is that Rika's name literally means "pear blossom," which in flower language signifies lasting friendship and hope. Rika wove a flower crown of amaranths, a plant genus named for the mythical amárantos flower, allegedly a purplish flower that never faded or died, usually symbolizing immortality because of that. Keiichi got gladiolus, which means strength of character, honor, conviction, etc. Mion had peonies, which symbolize prosperity and honor in China and masculinity and bravery in Japan, and Shion had rainflowers, which symbolize returned love, never forgetting someone, and needing to atone for one's sins. Rena had larkspur, which is also known as delphinium, which symbolizes levity, fun, generosity, ardent attachment, and joy. Satoko had white roses, which symbolize innocence and virtue, and may symbolize sorrow if dried.

It was for a wedding, or so Mion had explained when the truckload of flowers was unceremoniously dumped on her doorstep and the others found her and Shion sorting through them. Some relative of theirs had decided nothing would do but having an extravagant wedding with a dozen different types of flower arrangement and probably dozens of different kinds of flowers, and, well, with the wedding done and the bridal bouquet preserved, the rest of the flowers really had become extraneous. Thus, they were sent to Mion's grandmother as a sort of tribute, and thus, Mion and Shion were allowed to pick them over when Batcha accepted the tribute for what it was: a cheap attempt to appeal to her that disguised the couple in question getting rid of the flowers so they wouldn't have to deal with them themselves.

Everyone except Keiichi and Satoko plunged in with squeals of glee, picking apart all the wreathes and vases and floral arrangements with glee, and even Keiichi had been persuaded by the bright colors and nice scents, and Satoko was lured in by the prospect of roses and thorny traps.

"Check this out!" Mion said, lifting a twisted, elegant branch with pear blossoms sprouting from it. Keiichi looked over without understanding, and Mion's deft fingers quickly wove a circlet of pear flowers out of the bendy branch and several of its duplicates, holding it up with glee.

"Looks nice?" Keiichi said, wondering what the significance of the admittedly pretty-looking flower crown was.

"Mew…" Rika slunk down inside her pile of flowers, but Mion grinned and plonked the crown down on her hair before she could escape.

"Mi!" Rika wailed in protest.

"Now you match!" Mion said, laughing, and Keiichi snickered too as he caught the joke.

"Hau, you look lovely." Hanyuu said, patting Rika gently on the head, being careful to avoid the twisted wreath of her white-blooming flower crown. Rika scowled at her, and then, quick as lightning, grabbed a fistful of stalks with drooping, fuzzy, purple-red spikes of blossoms, weaving them quickly together, and all but slammed that wreath down on Hanyuu's head, making sure to catch it under her horns to further complicate removal.

"There!" she said with an angelic smile and a spiteful undertone. "Now _you_ match!"

"Hauhauhau…" Hanyuu whimpered, clutching at her horns and the drooping clumps of flowers that flopped around them. "Rikaaa!"

"That looks so cute, yes it does! So cute!" Rena chirped, smiling placidly from her place surrounded by more flowers. She frowned and cupped her chin as she studied the vase closest to her, inspecting the blossoms. "I wonder what sort of crown I should make…"

"Hah!" Mion laughed, smirking dangerously and rubbing her pollen-smeared hands. "Why don't we make it a competition?"

"Eh…" Keiichi rubbed the back of his head as he looked at the flowers. "I don't really know how to make those crown thingies…"

"Its okay Keiichi-kun." Rena said kindly, patting his shoulder. "I'll help you make a _really cute_ flower crown!"

Keiichi paused, then slowly nodded once or twice, firming his jaw. "Alright. Damn straight we will!" He punched the air and grinned. "I'll make a crown so awesome you all bow down before me and call the flower king!"

"That's the spirit!" Mion cackled, tossing her hair back and pulling the shears she'd been using for tougher stems out from the loop of her jeans like she was unsheathing a sword. "A club challenge! Rika and Hanyuu already have their flower crowns, but for them and everyone else, let's see who can make the best! Whoever wins becomes Flower Queen or King, and the others must bow down and serve them for the remainder of our cleanup here!"

"Bring it on!" Keiichi shouted, and he and Rena high-fived.

"Mm, I don't think a clumsy boy like Keiichi-san will _ever_ be able to make crowns as pretty as ours. Oh-ho-ho~!" Satoko cackled, holding a hand with a red rose tucked between her fingers before her mouth.

"That's the spirit, Satoko!" Shion cheered, flipping her long hair back over her shoulders with her own hand, to prepare it as much as she could for being crowned, since unlike Mion she wore her hair loose.

"The competition begins now!" Mion announced, jabbing a finger into the air. "Whoever doesn't make an awesome crown by the end of an hour gets a punishment game!"

And with that, the furious plundering of the various vases, wreaths, and other floral arrangements began, with each individual flower and stem being examined with minute attention before being either discarded, sorted, or laid aside for the preparation of a crown. And slowly, those crowns took place, with Rika and Hanyuu endeavoring to add to the ones they already had, rather than create other ones anew.

By the end of things, Rika had a beautiful, spreading fan of white pear blossoms that arched and waved on her head like a frozen spray of seafoam, and she folded her arms smugly as she looked at her nervously squeaking cousin.

Hanyuu, by contrast, had built her crown in a hanging curtain, since the sprays of flowers did not hold up well under gravity, and looked something like the European pictures of Silenus and Bacchus, albeit much smaller, younger, and cuter.

Satoko, perhaps taking a cue from this classical look, had woven a crown of white roses, gathering most of the blooms in the front of her wreath and making a point to stick out the stems in the sides and back, mimicking the thorns that had been stripped from the stalks.

Keiichi, true to form, had created a bold, colorful crown of stiff, upwards-pointing star-shaped flowers, which where held together at the top with some wire and string, creating a bishop-like pointed arch that was certainly impressive in its own way, if not particularly inspired.

Rena had woven her long stems of bursting white, pink, and purple flowers around her head in a rather ironic copy of her beloved white hat, somehow managing to create a cap of the fragrant blossoms that had several charming points and extensions where the long stems poked out of her crown.

Since peonies grew singularly on their stalks, Mion had opted for a more traditional flower crown, a thin circlet-like wreath with several of the spreading, fist-sized pink blossoms tucked behind her ear and studded over her forehead like a coronet.

Shion's flowers were on single stalks as well, but these were much thinner than peony stalks, so Shion was able to weave an elegant flower crown with evenly spaced white stars circling her brow and head, even arranging several of the flowers to dangle down on their stalks behind her ears, like earrings or chains.

Mion cupped her chin thoughtfully as she surveyed the work of her club, who were all looking at each other with equal amounts of challenge and congratulation in their eyes.

"Hmm…" she said aloud. "Hmm…"

"I won, right?" Keiichi asked, briefly gesturing to his towering crown before returning to his folded-arms position. "Mine's bigger than everyone else's."

"Ah, but Kei-chan, my flowers are bigger than yours." Mion said with a smirk, removing her hand from her chin. "Yours is the _tallest_ , not the biggest."

"H-hau, but I have the most!" Hanyuu chipped in, squeezing her eyes shut from the effort of piping up during a club judging, hands clenched in the front of her pink jumper. "Since mine are so small!"

"Mine was made the neatest!" Shion cut in.

"Mine was the hardest to make!" Rena pointed out, waving her arms.

"At least I _tried_ to be creative and symbolic!" Satoko said with a huff.

"Oh yeah?" Rena's eyes narrowed, and she whipped out one of the thin metal stakes that had held some of the flowers up, about as thick around as a pencil, lunging towards Satoko with a shout of "En garde!"

"Gyah!" Satoko reeled back, holding an arm before her chest with her eyes wide. "T-treachery in the Flower Kingdom?! To arms!"

"Yaaah!" Shion shouted, lunging and smacking Rena's "sword" down with a metal stake of her own. "To arms!"

"This is an insult that shall be paid in blood!" Keiichi roared, grabbing a stake of his own and hastening to the aid of his comrade Rena.

And so the makeshift club challenge devolved into a mock sword-fight with all the club members, frequently gasping and yelping in pain as the thin metal stakes thwacked down on wrists or poked into ribs. They skidded and slipped a little in the drifts of flowers everywhere, knocking the plastic vases (since the decorative ones had been placed in storage or the house hours ago) aside and spilling water and more flowers everywhere, filling the air with the scent of perfume, water, and crushed growing things.

Eventually, more than one crown was shredded and hung precariously over an ear or a forehead, but still they fought with valor and laughter, and eventually, one by one, the club members collapsed giggling into the piles of flowers everywhere, laughing up at the blue sky.

Slowly, their laughter dwindled, becoming something quieter, more content, as they looked up through the sleepy heat at the white clouds crawling across the sky, how puffy and billowing they were, how bright the blue of the sky was between them, and how wide it seemed, engulfed by the scents of crushed flowers and petals and feeling the fibrous mat of them beneath their collective backs. It was a long, long moment, the sort of seconds that seemed to become minutes and the sort of hours that didn't seem to exist at all.

Wrapped in the drowsy, contented heat of summer and of the fun that came with friendship and playing amongst true childhood friends, the group stilled, and just _were_ for a peaceful, unending stretch of time, were with each other and the day, were together and tired and resting and just soaking in the glorious ambiance of the day and the memories this day would make.

"So," Mion said at long last, still looking up at the sky with the others. "Truce?"

"The Flower Kingdom shall not forget this treachery." Satoko murmured, flopping an arm in an aimless gesture of defiance at Rena.

"Mm." Rena agreed, eyes half-lidded and sleepy like a lizard's as she peered up at the clouds.

Their long, restful, sleepy pause was interrupted by a voice from inside the house, a loud, authoritative voice that made them all jump up in alarm and lunge for the discarded vases and buckets.

" _WHAT_ HAVE YOU CHILDREN DONE TO THE FLOWERS?!"


	87. Day 27: Lost and Found (2020)

Long, long ago, years beyond the count of time, Rika had enjoyed Watanagashi. What felt like eons ago, when she did not know of the horrors that would be visited upon her friends and Keiichi was still strange and new and not just one more actor, she had laughed and played with her friends, eaten the caramel apples and cotton candy free of worry or care, played the club games with a smile that was genuine rather than hollow.

She knew she had. She just didn't remember it, didn't feel it.

The only thing she felt every June was encroaching dread, the slow ominous creep of madness as it overtook one or more of her friends and plunged them into murder and despair. Watanagashi was her litmus paper, both the needle in an indicator and the moment when that needle flicked and quavered over from yellow to red and DANGER blared throughout her system.

Perhaps it would be Keiichi, perhaps Rena, perhaps Mion or Shion, but every Watanagashi brought death, despair, and bloody tragedy. Why should she look forward to it? Why should she find a particle of enjoyment in mechanically dancing a dance she could do backwards and blindfolded, of scampering throughout games she had played a thousand times before and always, always having to remember to keep a smile pasted on her face, blank and cheerful as a mask, as she tried not to ruin the last few moments of peace her friends would have in this world.

Watanagashi was a symbol of her failure, her despair, her death, and her resignation.

But in one blessed, glittering world, as brief and sudden as a spark of light in a mica-embedded rock, as small and fragile and hard to grasp as that single mote of light winking in one fraction of a moment, in one world neither her friends nor her circumstances were fraught with dread.

And yes, she played with them, played with new heart as she saw the cold villagers smiling and gently patting Satoko on the head, offering her sweets and treats that wouldn't jar the cotton padding taped over her jaw, cooing and fretting with sympathy over the bandaids stuck over her skin, laughing and teasing Keiichi who had revitalized a legendary movement of their immediate past, Rika had not truly _forgotten_. True, her friends were safe, but what of her? What of her inescapable, inevitable fate?

She shrugged those thoughts aside and forged onwards, and that Watanagashi, for the first time in Rika's memory, she did manage to enjoy, if just a little.

But the last one –ah, the last Watanagashi of 1983. _That_ was a celebration, and a celebration born from the first carefree joy Rika had truly experienced in her long, long life. She had laughed and played and danced with the electric, floating joy that could only come from pure relief, had played as a child for the first time in hundreds of years, had played and _enjoyed_ it, safely, knowing she would never have to worry about such things again.

She had danced her offering dance, as befitted the shrine maiden, and for once Hanyuu was not floating above the altar, watching her with eyes that encouraged and despaired at the same time, a flickering mask of encouragement for her dance sliding aside to reveal the worry and fear for the others beneath, whichever teetered on the verge of madness that cycle.

No, Hanyuu was in the crowd, smiling and cheering with the others, and Rika danced all the harder for it, smiled all the brighter. Her friends were together, and safe, and she was safe, safe to play and live and learn and grow as an ordinary girl for the first time in over a hundred years.

* * *

You're lost  
You're found  
You're hard to pin down  
I never know if you'll come through

Then you appear  
Together we're here  
And that's all that matters, somehow

–All That Matters, _RWBY_ Volume 5 Soundtrack


	88. Day 28: Light (2020)

Keiichi's shows of strength, his willpower, his ability to twist fate, it's all like a firework. Bright, explosive, impressive, spanning farther than anyone who saw the unprepossessing shell could've thought, a thousand colors and sparks raining down to ignite more fires in the unwary, able to turn night to day and inspire even the dullest of souls.

But like a firework, Keiichi's inspiration, his ability to strike fires and ignite miracles, was brief and tenuous. It was fragile. It those flames were not fed, they would be extinguished and leave nothing of themselves. That was why they had failed in one of the most unspeakable cycles –not just unspeakable because it dealt with Satoko suffering under her uncle, but because it had seen them defeat that cruel man, imprison him and free Satoko of the mentality Rika had spent decades trying to fix, tear down her fate, discover the identity of her tormentor, and be well on the way to success and safety before they…failed.

Failure was a better way of saying it. A kinder way, a less grief-stricken way.

They were massacred, would be the correct way. The blunt way. The accurate way.

They had _almost_ made it, and there was no crueler fate, no crueler words for Rika in her hundred years of reincarnating, than _almost_. So close, but not close enough. They could see their goal, they could see it and _almost_ touch it, but it slipped from their fingers the moment their fingertips brushed it.

Perhaps one might say Rena's unyielding fire was more potent, for it slumbered but did not die, and awoke from smoldering blue to incandescent white-hot at moments of true peril, fires that burned away Rena's ordinarily calm and placid personality and forged her in adamantine will, turning her into a powerhouse, a berserker that would not stop, would not pause, would not even falter the moment she tasted blood, cutting and probing until she hit right down to the bone, whether in words or deeds.

Rika might have been more appreciative of that will if it hadn't, in so many worlds, left her a blackened, charcoaled husk in the corner of what once had been a school, but was now a few fragile posts in an ashen crater, with unknown chunks of metal and glass fused and melted into new shapes, dirty with more ash and soot, and scattered with the small, twisted skeletons of her and the other children.

And although Rika loved her friends dearly, and had counted on their fire and passion more times than she liked to think of, there was always a part of her that would remember how their brightness and passion had failed her or turned against her.

Fire was not always beneficial, after all.


	89. Day 29: Dark (2020)

* * *

Darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good. –P.C. Cast

* * *

Rika is guilty of some things, less than she expected but more than others would think of her. One of those things, oddly enough, is her rare moments of peace.

The bruise-black darkness she awakens to after dying, scattered with a thousand faint, faded, or sparkling stars in the form of kakera.

Oh, it is a shameful thing to enjoy, but Rika does experience a moment of peace, a moment of relief, just for a split fraction of a second and under all her desperation and anger as she shouts at Hanyuu or the reflections of herself.

In this place, after she has died, she has no one to placate, no one to lie to, no efforts to make or plans to foil. There's just her, alone and dead in the infinity of some sort of blank space. Its relaxing, its releasing, it's a place where she doesn't have to be or to do and for Rika, who lives her life over and over again under the burden of murder and fear of failure, that is a gift beyond price. She doesn't have to fake smiles and cheer and innocent naivete around people she loves and cares for, doesn't have to fake and hide her pain because to show it to them is to invite endless, pointless questions, sometimes suspicion, occasionally murder, and always, always, more stumbling blocks in her path.

In death, for a few moments, Rika is quiet and peaceful in the darkness, and she treasures this time almost as much as she is ashamed of it.

* * *

Keiichi reads his murder mysteries in the dark, flashlight under the covers like he sees sometimes in manga, grinning and excited and full of the childish mystique of seeing plot points and clues exposed in wavering beams of battery-fueled flashlight.

His innate curiosity fuels him, the want and the need to know, and he finds himself devouring things that perhaps a child of his age should not be reading, full of gore and glamor and twisted, cruel themes that a child should not perhaps know, the kind of torture, torment, and wicked murders and murderers that are so macabre they're almost hypnotizing, like the tugging vertigo when one stands at the verge of a cliff and looks down.

This knowledge does not harm him, or at least to his knowledge (and the manga that fuels his fear of needles was a tame one by most standards), and those dark books and dark themes lead him on a strange, twisted journey, like a zigzag staircase in some modern painting, going up and down and diagonal and around, threading his way through the ways of murder and mayhem with interest and zeal, learning, learning.

That learning stands him in good stead, giving him perspective, giving him trivia, giving him a plethora of neat facts to impress and awe his friends.


	90. Day 30: Faith (2020)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the wiki and Umineko (dubiously canon compliant in Higurashi, to be sure), Hanyuu did actually know Takano was the culprit behind Rika’s murders, but kept quiet on it because she didn’t want to lose Rika. It does seem a little suspicious that, as the deity for all of Hinamizawa, Hanyuu wouldn’t know who was behind it all, but then again, neither the manga or the anime confirm she does anything more than linger around like a ghost with occasional telekinetic powers.

Numinous means faith  
Faith in the presence of god  
This Hanyuu protects

Why she is silent  
Why the culprit is unknown  
In Hanyuu's own place

This is why she dies  
Over and over again  
Stay at Hanyuu's side

Don't learn and leave  
Rika must stay and see here  
To solve is to leave

A goddess alone  
Throughout all time, isolated  
But not now with her

A logic error  
Unsolved mystery a lock  
Keeping Rika in

Why she is silent  
Why the culprit is unknown  
In Hanyuu's own place


End file.
